James of the Hidden Leaf Village Vol: 2 Ruin
by Fishcake17
Summary: The second installment in the James of the Hidden Leaf Village series. It'll be humorous for the first half, but probably a lot edgier and darker in the second half.
1. Chapter 1: Escape and Imprisonment

**_Author's Note: _This is the second installment of the James of the Hidden Leaf Village series. If you haven't read the first, James of the Hidden Leaf Village, I highly recommend you do so, because if you haven't, you probably won't know half of what's going on.**

**_DISCLAIMER: _ I do not own Naruto. Said and done. I don't own Naruto. Anyone who thinks I own Naruto is mislead and/or wrong.**

_**Chapter One – Escape and Imprisonment**_

I felt like I opened my eyes, but I wasn't certain because all I was seeing was black. Darkness, that's it. Dazed would be the first thing that came to mind if you were to describe my mental state. I couldn't move my body at all except for the tips of my fingers and my head for a while. It felt like I was laying down on something, and whatever I was laying down on was very comfy.

_Where am I?_ That was the first thing I wanted to know, though frankly, I couldn't exactly find that out when my entire body was out of order. So I tried thinking of the last thing I could remember.

_Let's see…I battled that army with Naruto, and Gaara came to save us both…I went back to the war room…and I…I…wait…oh no…this isn't good!!! WHY AM I NOT DEAD!?!?!? Wait…am I dead? Is this what death is? Just a blackness that no one can escape from? If I'm not dead, that must mean Kaminari is still around, right? Kaminari, can you hear me!?_

No response.

_KAMINARI THIS ISN'T FUNNY!!!_

No response.

_She's not here…so, am I dead or what?_ I realized that while taking the time to think, I was now able to move most of my hand and a small portion of my legs. _Seems like with time, I'll be able to move right again. Then I can find out where the hell I am. Heh, that's ironic, I could be in hell and not even know it._

I don't know how long I waited, but after a long while I was finally able to move my arms around freely. Well, as freely as they could. I tried swinging them around only to find I was trapped in some sort of barrier. I decided to get some light going to see where I was, so I concentrated my chakra to the tip of my index finger, making it glow enough that it lit the surrounding area. I looked around, and as soon as I realized where I was, I had a Class A freak out session.

I realized that I was inside a coffin.

After a while I'd managed to calm myself down a bit. _Okay James…calm…calm…I'm inside a coffin…have I been buried!?!? How am I still alive!? It doesn't make any sense! …calm down, calm down…I have to find a way out of here…_ I tried pounding on the top of the coffin to break it down, but my arms had no room, and my attempt was poor. _Okay, screw this!_ I made the hand sign and said, "Lightning Paralysis Jutsu!!!" My hands glowed with lightning, and I broke a big hole through the top, revealing that I was in some sort of cave. I climbed out of the coffin, landed on the floor and stumbled because my legs weren't ready yet. Thankfully I caught myself before I hit the stone floor face-first. I couldn't stand up, so I kinda half laid down while looking at where I was.

It looked like I was in some kind of tomb. The walls, floors, ceiling, and everything else seemed to be made of the exact same type of stone; a grayish rock that cast a gloomy outlook on this place.

"Who goes there!?!?" I heard someone shout. Two guards came into the room, and I had no idea what to do. "Grave robber, huh? Not on my watch!" He took out two tonfa and was at the ready with them.

"Whoa whoa, wait a sec!" I said to them, "I'm no grave robber! I just…came out from there…" I pointed to the coffin that I had blasted myself out of.

"Yeah, right. The dead don't rise, boy." The other guard said, "Now where is your accomplice that took the body out?"

"A-accomplice!?!?" I said, infuriated, "Look at me!!! I'm James!!! Remember? James Moretto!!!"

The two guards both looked at each other and laughed. "Boy…" a guard said in the middle of laughing, "James had been dead for some time now…hahaha…and besides…hehe…you don't even look like him at all!"

"Whadaya mean I don't-!" I stopped myself just in time to realize something. I had longer hair…a lot longer hair. It came down to my lower back, whereas before it barely covered all of my neck. I scratched my chin without even thinking about it, and discovered that I had a pretty good beard going too. My eyes widened in shock. _No wonder they don't buy it…I probably don't look anything like how I looked before! How long have I been in that coffin anyways?_ I reasoned that there was probably no way I could possibly talk myself out of this one, and I didn't want to hurt anyone, so I simply held my hands out and said, "Okay, take me wherever you guys want…" in a gloomy, defeated voice.

"Not until you tell us where your accomplice is." One of the guards said.

I snapped. "GODDAMMIT I HAVE NO ACCOMPLICE!!! I AM THE BODY!!! I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, BUT I-" Before I could finish what I was saying, one of the guards hit me on the head hard enough to almost knock me out. I fell to the floor, and I thought my head may have been bleeding.

"How dare you attempt to steal the great James' body." One of the guards said in disgust. He picked me up, put my hands behind my back, bound them and said, "Do you know what the penalty is for attempting to raid the Hall of Honors?"

I dully thought of a few wisecracks I might have thrown at him, but decided not to and instead said, "I'm going to guess death?"

"That's right, boy," he said, "Not only death, death by public hanging."

"I didn't even realize that Konoha had that punishment." I dully said.

"That's because it hasn't had to be used for a very, very long time. Maybe a good twenty years or so when the last person tried to come and rob a grave from the Hall of Honors."

I had no idea what to do, so I figured I would just go with it. _Soon enough, someone'll recognize me passing by or something, I might get lucky and be spotted by Tsunade or something. I doubt I'm going to get hanged in the end, I mean by the time the arrangements are made and such, someone would have seen me…right?_

The guards walked me outside of the Hall of Honors, and I had to squint my eyes because it was so bright. We walked down the street, and went through the main gate. I tried spotting people I might recognize, but to no avail. We walked through a forest path I had never taken before, and eventually came across a building I'd never seen before. We entered the building, and as soon as I saw the cells I realized it was a jail. The guards led me up to a cell, threw me in, closed and locked it up. "Don't bother trying to use Jutsu here, boy," one of the guards said, "They don't work here. A special barrier has been erected to prevent the use of them."

I sat on the crappy bed supplied, not knowing what to do. All of my bodily functions hit at the same time, so I went pee and crap a lot that day.

At one point I asked the person in the cell across from me, "Hey, do you know about James Moretto?"

The guy looked at me and said, "Well duh. He's the one that wiped out all of them monsters a while back."

"How long ago did he do that?"

"mmm…I think it's probably been 'bout a year and a half now."


	2. Chapter 2: Jailed

_**Chapter Two - Jailed**_

"mmm…I think it's been about a year and a half now…" Those words echoed in my mind like a mental plague. I just stood there for about five minutes, trying to wrap my head around this. Then I had to sit down on the hard, concrete floor just to take it in.

_One and a half years…could he maybe be mistaken?_

I don't remember how long I sat there for, but it was a hell of a long time. I simply sat there, reflected, and thought.

The thing is, I had no intention of being "resurrected" for lack of any other word to describe it. I was ready to die when I took down that entire army. I almost _wanted_ to die because I built it up so much. I knew I was going to, and I did.

But this? I never, ever expected this. I braced myself for the end of my life, and for what? For me to be revived? All of that preparing I did mentally, completely useless. The sheer thought drained a lot of energy out of me trying to think about it.

And now I was here. I climbed out of my own coffin, just to be arrested as a graverobber. What the hell was I supposed to do now? _I could try to break out…_

Just as I had thought that, I realized that my body was still extremely stiff. If it had been one and a half years, it would make sense, cause I sure felt it.

Later on my bodily functions finally took their toll. I'd rather not get into detail with what happened there; you can imagine that yourself. Hey, I'd been saving up for a while now, maybe one and a half years' worth. The cell had absolutely no commodities whatsoever. There was absolutely nothing; it was empty. No bed, no bucket, no nothing, so I had to frantically ask the guard for a bucket once everything came rushing to me.

_This is shaping out to be the worst day of my life. Heh, the worst day of my life…how ironic for me to say._

This went on for a couple of days, I think. I couldn't really tell because the cells were always lit; day and night were indiscernible. It felt like weeks to me though…weeks staying in that one cell, never being able to come out, barely getting any meals. All I got for food was a simple roll and water. Amazing how long a human can last with that little substance; I looked around and saw other people in their cells, looking deathly skinny.

_Well…this is jail after all…_

So there I was. In jail after I'd climbed out of my own damn coffin. I foolishly asked if it was possible for me to shave so someone might recognize me, and got whacked with a tonfa upside the head because of it.

_It's official. This is one of the worst periods of my entire life._

Slept, waited, ate, waited, slept, waited, ate, waited. That's the pattern I had for what felt like weeks. Finally, the pattern was broken when one of the same guards that had taken me here in the first place came and unlocked my door.

"Am I free?" I foolishly asked.

"Hahaha, no boy," the guard replied as he tied my hands behind my back, "Unless you call your death freedom. Your hanging is today."


	3. Chapter 3: Hanging Day

_**Chapter Three – Hanging Day**_

The guard led me outside, into the sunlight. It was bright as hell, and I needed to squint in order to see anything for a while. We walked back towards the village, the guard leading me on the entire time. We passed through the main gate, and up ahead a ways I could see a wooden contraption being put together in the Town Square. As we got closer, I realized it was a hanging platform We got closer, and people began to emerge from other sides of town, gathering in the Town Square to watch the hanging. I faintly wondered why they would want to watch such an execution, but then realized that it was probably announced and encouraged by the higher-ups to watch.

_Well…if I die…again…then this'll all be over with. Hopefully I won't come back from the dead, hopefully I'll stay dead so nothing like this has to happen again. So I suppose it doesn't matter to me; I'm okay with dying. I was supposed to be dead anyways._

We were almost to the hanging platform when I started faintly recognizing a few people there. I couldn't place any names, but they were people I had passed by before…_A year and a half ago…_It still amazed me how I was able to get up after a year and a half, but somehow it happened. I was supposed to be dead, so why wasn't I? Some glitch in fate, perhaps?

We were now right in front of the platform. There was a man on it beside a lever, no doubt the lever that would hang me. "Get up there, boy" said the guard that led me here. I really had no choice; the crowd was thickening and buzzing with various chitchat about what was to happen. I couldn't get away now even if I wanted to. I put my foot up and raised myself to the platform. The lever-puller went to me and put the rope noose around my neck. I felt the rough fabric around my neck, along with the helplessness of not being able to do a single thing about it.

_Well…this is it…_

I was facing opposite from the Hokage Mansion. The entire Square was filled with people, eagerly awaiting the execution of a boy who had supposedly stolen the corpse of James Moretto. I looked upon the people present. There were a few people I knew; Kiba and his family were there. I looked at him, he looked at me straight back. I could tell he didn't recognize me, nor did he care to.

My eyes wandered about the crowd. I thought I saw Shikamaru there as well, but I wasn't sure. They wandered more, and they fell upon a group members from the Hyuga clan. I recognized Neji, his long brown hair flowing as finely as usual.

My eyes settled upon Hinata. My, she had changed, now she was more beautiful than ever. Her semi-long, bluish-black hair flowed along her modest figure. I looked into her eyes, and she looked back. _Just as hypnotizing as ever…_ I thought as I stared at her eyes. She was emotionless for a few moments before I saw her lean over to another one of her clan and whisper something to him urgently. The other Hyuga man shook his head, and I could see him mouthing the word, "Impossible".

_Did she recognize me?_

The man pulled the lever, and the floor I stood on disappeared. I dropped.


	4. Chapter 4: Escape

_**Chapter Four – Escape from an Unknown Source**_

I might have dropped a centimeter when I saw a saw a faint grayish blur pass right above me. I heard something snap, and I fell on the floor, landing unexpectedly and awkwardly. No pressure was coming from the noose; I was confused. _Uhh…what just happened? I should be dead!_ I looked up from where I was standing, and saw that the rope had been severed by a shuriken.

_I am the luckiest asshole that ever lived. Period. Someone must have thrown a shuriken at me, but missed and hit the noose instead, making it so I dropped completely down instead of being hanged. _Only my head was visible to the crowd; the rest of my body was hidden by the hollow platform. _This is fucking insane!_

The crowd looked around and buzzed in confusion. One of them shouted, "He's trying to get away!!! GET HIM!!!"

_Oh shit…_

I thought up a plan quickly. I crouched down so no one could see me, and said quietly, "Shadowclone Jutsu." A shadowclone of me appeared to the side of me. "Go distract them." I told my shadowclone. He nodded, jumped out of the hollow platform and ran like hell. I heard a roar of footsteps and shouts going in his direction, and I stayed crouched so no one could see me.

It got quiet fast. After a little bit, I peeked out of the hollow platform to see if anyone was there. The entire Square had been completely deserted; not a soul was there. I climbed out, feeling safe. _What now? Hmm…maybe I should go to Tsunade and see if I can explain things to her. How'll I get to her though? There's bound to be guards inside I won't be able to get past, and I don't want to hurt anyone in this village. To do so means I might as well be hanged anyways._

_ Maybe I should just go home? Yeah, think I'll do that. Get everything sorted out, mull things over, clear my mind, and then go to Tsunade._ I started walking towards my house. Apparently my shadowclone had lured everyone away; the streets were completely deserted.

I approached my house and went in. It was the exact same way it was before, except dusty as hell. Apparently it hadn't been tended to, which was fine with me.

_Home…finally…I'm home…_ I sat on the couch, leaned back, checked the clock that said 11:32 a.m., and closed my eyes. I was tired; this had been one hell of a week for me so far.

**

I didn't know where I was. All I knew was that I was in a very dark room, it seemed to be square and it was empty. I didn't recognize the room at all; I'd never been in it. I didn't know how I got there. My first instinct was to light the place up. I held my index finger up and concentrated my chakra into the tip, making it emit a blue light around the room.

I was startled to see that there was someone about three feet in front of me. She was very attractive, with long blonde hair that went down to her back. She wore a simple, green dress and green shoes, though the light made it look like a greenish-blue color. She had a kind face, and I got the feeling she was not a foe of any sort.

I asked her, "Who are you?"

Her lips were moving in response, but no words were coming out of them.

"What was that?" I asked, "I can't hear you…"

Again, lips moving, but no sound. I dearly wished I could read lips.

"I'm sorry…I can't hear you. Maybe some form of jutsu is preventing me from hearing you?" I suggested.

She smiled and shook her head "no".

"Then what?" I asked.

She simply stood there and smiled, hands behind her back, looking sweet. Everything suddenly started moving away from me; the room, the girl, everything, as if I were on a conveyor belt of some kind. I didn't know what to do; I just stood there watching the room and the girl disappear from sight.

A brilliant flash of light blinded me for a few moments. I covered my eyes for the time, then looked to see I was right outside of Konoha, mere paces away from the main gate. The sky was blood red; the clouds a dark pink. Smoke rose from within Konoha, but somehow I felt no urgency. I calmly walked into Konoha.

The first thing I noticed was a mountainous stack of bodies in the Town Square where I was to be hanged. Hundreds of people, rotting flesh piled on top of each other. Some were still bleeding badly, some were still stirring, but most were motionless. Dead bodies. More dead were being dropped on top of the mountain of bodies; it was like an endless rain of bodies fixed at the very top of it. I just stood there, appalled. Higher and higher the mountain of bodies rose, higher and higher, until they were tens of thousands high. People were stacked sky high at this point. I saw a lot of my friends there…too many of them. There was an explosion set off in the distance, and I jolted my head in the direction. Another explosion, closer this time. Another…another…

**

I woke up abruptly, and sat straight up on the couch. I had a major headache, and I went into the bathroom to grab myself some Ibuprofen. _Wow, that was one of the worst dreams I've ever had...how long have I been out?_ I looked at my clock, and it said 7:48 p.m. _I fell asleep at – what – somewhere around 11:45 in the morning? Wow, I've been out a while. _I took two little white Ibuprofen pills and swallowed them whole, took a swig of water, and sat on the couch again to wake up and contemplate what my next course of action would be.

_I have to get to Tsunade to tell her who I really am…she'd recognize me; I'm sure of it. First, I should shave this damn beard off and cut my hair._ I looked in the mirror, took out a kunai, pulled all of my long hair together, and with one swipe I cut a massive portion of my hair off. Now, instead of me having blonde hair down to my back, it was about down to my neck. I then took the same kunai and chopped off a nice portion of my beard. I couldn't get all of it; my razors were aged for so long that they'd lost their sharpness.

_Okay…how am I going to get to her…_ I thought of trying to sneak through the front door, but immediately dismissed that. _Stupid idea, that'll never work. There's bound to be Jonin or higher guards there. No…is there a back door maybe? I've never seen a back door there before…wait a second…_ I looked towards Hokage Mansion - I had a nice view of it from my room – and looked to the top to Tsunade's office. I thought I could see a blonde head of hair that was Tsunade's. But what I was looking for was there as well: an open window straight to her office.

_Bingo!_


	5. Chapter 5: Sneaking

_**Chapter Five – Sneaking**_

I only took a couple minutes to formulate my plan. _I'll have to be very quiet and sneaky about this; at this point the mob has probably already dispersed and will want to search for me another day. They're probably all at home now. Thing is, guards'll be on the lookout for me. I'm really glad sneaking around is one of my strong points as a Ninja..._

_ Once I get to the window, I'll jump in there and quickly explain myself to Tsunade. She'll have to believe me! Especially since I now look a little like myself now that I've cut my hair a little and chopped off part of this damn beard. Seriously, this beard is annoying me; it's really itchy…_

For a grand total of one minute I braced myself mentally. I took a deep breath, exhaled and opened the door.

Nothing was in the front porch. No people, no traps that I could see, nothing. I was slightly relieved, but still alert. The sun was almost completely set, and nighttime was approaching rapidly. I quickly crossed the street and went into an alleyway, darted across the alleyway and jumped on a rooftop, jumped over a few roofs until I thought I was too close to Hokage Mansion that someone would see me on the roof. I dropped back down into another alleyway, came to the end of it and peeked around the corner. I was very close to the Hokage Mansion's front door, but that's not what I was aiming to get to. I darted across another street and into yet another alleyway. This alleyway was particularly darker than the rest.

All of a sudden I got a bad feeling about this. Something didn't feel right at all. Instinctively I put my hands together and said, "Release!"

The darkness cleared immediately. _Genjutsu…knew it…_ I turned around and faced the one person I wanted to see the very least.

Kakashi Hatake was standing at the other end of the alley. I looked back and realized the alley didn't have another end; it was blocked off by a huge wall.

_How cliché…_was all I could think at the time.


	6. Chapter 6: The Duel

_**Chapter Six – The Duel**_

"Kakashi-sensei…" I said quietly, "You recognize me, don't you?"

Kakashi paused for a moment, then pulled out a shuriken and threw it at me. I jumped out of the way just in time, and the shuriken flew behind me into the wall with a _tink!_

"I recognize you," Kakashi started, "only as a criminal and a graverobber of one of the great heroes of this nation. You're cornered, you have no options. You either come with me, or fight."

_This can't be real. Not even my own sensei recognizes me…this can't be happening!!!_

I went into a fit of frustration. My hands lit up with electricity as I threw the hand signs together and yelled, "LIGHTNING PARALYSIS JUTSU!!!" I threw my fists at Kakashi, and he just kept dodging and dodging. Over and over I threw furious, frustrated blows, but only to have them blocked at the arm or simply dodged. I changed my tactics; I threw together the hand signs quickly after I threw another punch, flowing like water, and sent an electric shock to him after I yelled "Lightning Bolt Jutsu!". His eyes declared that he was surprised, but he simply bounded over and came down on me with a power-packed kick.

It hit me square in the face.

I went sprawling backwards, hitting the wall at the end of the alley and falling down, catching myself on all fours. I could feel blood from my mouth where he struck me, and I coughed a little as I tried to think of what was wrong with this picture. It felt like something was off, but for a little I couldn't quite put my finger on what.

Then it hit me. _Wait a minute, this is Kakashi-sensei we're talking about here. His kick would have obliterated my face completely. He held back. Why?_

I got myself back up into a battle-ready stance. "Kakashi-sensei, please! It's me, James!"

"I'm growing tired of you saying that you're James," Kakashi said, "So stop talking and prove it to me."

_How do I prove that I am James…_I had to think of how I was going to do this as I dodged a multitude of Kakashi's blows. Crouch, block, crouch, strafe left, strafe right, block, backflip, block.

He had eventually pushed me to the very back of the alleyway, right up against the wall. _How do I prove that I am James…_ I ducked at one of Kakashi's punches, and it made a nice crunching sound on the wall behind me. _I've got it!_

His fist was stuck in the wall for only about a second, but it was enough for me to slide under his legs, somersault and face him. Now he was against the wall, and I was on the offense. I quickly made some gestures, and positioned my hand so that my right palm was facing the ground, and my entire left arm was supporting it. An amazing glow of chakra emitted from my palm, and it started sparking everywhere. The blue lightning I now held in my right hand was restless, waiting for use.

Kakashi got his hand unstuck from the wall, but it was too late. I already charged at him with full force, raising my right arm to him and yelling, "_**CHIDORI!!!**_"

Palm connected square on the chest. I rammed Kakashi through the wall, Chidori blazing, stone crumbling behind me. We crashed out through the other side of the wall, and only then did I launch Kakashi from my grasp and well into the alley across the street, crashing into the wall at the end of that alley as well. I saw him fall from the wall, to the floor.

Then, to my horror, I saw a poof of smoke, making Kakashi's clone disappear and replacing it with a log. _I've been logged…_ my comical mind faintly said. "Dammit!" I yelled. Only a moment after I yelled that, I felt cold steel on my neck. I glanced down to see a Kunai right up against my jugular, and I knew Kakashi was right there. I was done for.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked Kakashi, "You've won. Kill me."

To my amazement, he took the kunai from my throat and stepped back. I whirled around and immediately went into a battle stance, but Kakashi didn't seem hostile anymore. He was simply standing there. _Is this a trick of some kind? Genjutsu!? _I put my hands together and said, "Release!" but nothing happened. "Why did you let me go? I'm just a grave robber, aren't I?"

Kakashi shook his head. "You used Chidori. There's only two ninja in Konoha I've ever taught that to, and you sure as hell don't look like Sasuke. Which means that you must be James, as you say."

_You've gotta be kidding me…is this really happening!?_

"I was sent by Tsunade to see if you really were James," Kakashi explained further, "She caught wind that you were going by that name, and for reasons beyond me at the time she thought you just might be him. I thought it was ridiculous at first, but now I'm beginning to be glad that she told me to come out here and test you the way that she did."

That last Chidori was draining my energy quickly now. I started panting and kneeled down on the ground as I said, "So…you…believe me…now?"

"Maybe." Was Kakashi's only reply.


	7. Chapter 7: Settling Again

_**Chapter 7 – Settling Again**_

I woke up finding myself in a familiar setting: a bed in Konoha Hospital. _Oh yeah, I've been here before. Heh, I guess what with everything that's happened this past week, performing Chidori was just too much for me._ I smiled a little. _Well, at least now I know I have a chance. Hopefully they aren't resting me up just to try to execute me again._ I lifted my head to see a familiar sight in front of me.

"Tsunade…" I said slowly, "Do you-"

Tsunade interrupted me while softly smiling, "Welcome back, James. I'm glad I threw that shuriken at the noose when I did, or else this time you really would be dead. You've been out for three days straight here." All I could do at this point was smile wide. I was so happy that someone finally recognized me here, and the fact that this someone was Tsunade meant that there was pretty much a guarantee that I'd be okay.

"I…I don't know what to say…I'm so happy right now!" I said.

At that moment, I heard the door open. A familiar pink-haired kunoichi entered the room asking, "Is he still-", but before she finished she looked to me, my eyes tired but friendly and me smiling. Her eyes widened, and she immediately yelled, "JAMES!" pretty much dashed to me and hugged me furiously. I didn't expect it at all, and she was slightly hurting me, but meh, I could take it. I hugged back, and she said, "We all thought you were dead…you were in your coffin…what happened!" while still hugging.

"I've been trying to figure that out myself…" I said to her.

Tsunade said warmly, "Since she caught wind of you here, Sakura has hardly ever left your side."

Sakura finally released me (her grip had REALLY tightened over the year and a half apparently), and said, "Look on the counter, I brought you something. I've been taking care of it ever since you forgot about it and left it to ride on the dragon with Hinata."

I looked to the right on my counter, and my mouth and eyes widened in disbelief. After the initial shock, I smiled and said, "That's right, I forgot that the Rainbow Flowers could live for so long." There it was, the Rainbow Flower I was supposed to give Hinata on Hanami, and in the same vase as well, but something was missing… "I'm very, very grateful that you kept this in such good shape," I started, "But just out of curiosity…where did the Emerald Ring go that was around the stem?"

"Oh, that?" Sakura said smiling, "Well, I couldn't really water the flower with that in the way, now could I? So, I took it out and, well…" She held her right hand up for me to view, and I could see that she was wearing the Emerald Ring on her index finger. "I hope you don't mind…but I kind of took a liking to wearing it, and besides, it kept it out of the way." She took it off and placed it on the counter next to the Rainbow Flower. "You can have it back." She said cheerfully.

"Heh, well if you like it that much and you want it, you can have it," I told her, "I can imagine it'd be a bit difficult to part with it."

"Are you kidding me?" Sakura said, "No way! You're taking it back, and I wanna see you give it to Hinata like you originally planned!"

I flashed back a bit to the poker game where I lost my lucky pearl and the chance to get the Emerald Ring. I'd had a straight flush, but Tsunade had a Royal Flush, so she took it all. Eventually, she gave both the pearl and the ring to me, saying that I had to give the ring to Hinata that night and ask her out in order to keep from her taking it back. That was the deal before Mikaboshi's army came into play…

"Heh, that's right. I was gonna give both to her," I said half mumbling, "And I still plan on doing just that!" I added.

"Good," Tsunade said smiling, "Then I won't be forced to take it back."

"Aww you were gonna take it back!" I said good humouredly, "Cheap!" We all shared a nice chuckle with that comment.

"So how long am I gonna be stuck here for?" I asked.

"The next two days," Sakura replied, "It's not that you're injured or anything, but you're just exhausted beyond belief."

"True enough," I replied. As if to prove her point, I yawned right after I said that. "So how has everyone been the past one-point-five years since I was gone?"

"By everyone, you mean Hinata, right?" Sakura teased.

"Oh c'mon, gimme a bit more credit than that! It's not like I think about her ALL the time!"

A small silence filled the room.

"…okay maybe I do, shuddup! But no seriously, I mean all of the rest of them too. Naruto, Kiba, Lee, Ino, and y'know those people!"

Sakura sighed and said, "Oh, you know, after you died it was a bit gloomy for about a month, but as time passed things took their normal course. Lee's still training ridiculously in his dojo, accepting all challengers, Ino still works at her family's flower shop, Kiba and Akamaru are still together – oh and by the way, you should see how much Akamaru's grown! – I'm still here training under Tsunade as a medical ninja-"

"-And she's done quite well, I must say," Tsunade added, "But yes, everything here has been relatively normal and moving onwards. I hope this won't trouble you, but nearly all of your comrades have already been promoted from Genin to Chunin, and in Neji's case, Jonin."

My eyes widened. "Whoa…I'm pretty damn far behind, aren't I?"

"Yeah, pretty much…" Sakura said slowly, "…except Naruto, he's still a Genin. But even so, he's been training with Jiraya, one of the three Sannin like Tsunade-"

"-Meaning even Naruto's probably getting stronger, despite the fact he's a Genin…" I said, sounding a little depressed. "How am I gonna catch up now…I was already behind as it was…and now I don't even have Kaminari to help…"

"About that," Tsunade started, "We did a check up on your current situation with Kaminari and Mikaboshi. It appears that both of them have disappeared completely from your body. When you sacrificed yourself a year and a half ago, it released both of them from your body. They battled it out, and it ended up that Kaminari used her final technique, killing herself and Mikaboshi at the same time. One of the theories behind you coming back to life that we came up with is that Kaminari, at the last moment, used a technique that sent you into a death-like hibernation, recovering all of your chakra in the meantime. It also seems that, under all of our noses, Mikaboshi was blocking a portion of your chakra supply away, so you should have more chakra now."

"Still, no Kaminari…" I sighed and said, "That's gonna be tough to deal with…hey what am I saying? Quite possibly thanks to her, I'm still alive!" I paused before saying, "Well, what now?"

"We would suggest that you stay here for another day to recover," Sakura said, "but it isn't mandatory."

"Eh…I think I'd rather go back to my own place. Sorry Sakura."

"Oh, no that's fine! Considering your position, I can't blame you at all."

"Thanks for understanding."

"If you are interested," Tsunade started, "the Chunin Exams are soon. If you pass, obviously it will promote you to Chunin."

"Well then, I suppose I'll have to train some to make up for lost time!" I said enthusiastically, "How hard can it be?" I jumped up from my hospital bed and said, "I'm outta here! Thanks for the rest and such." I went down the stairs, checked myself out of the hospital at the front counter, and went outside.

Everyone seemed back to normal; they were all doing their own things, walking and minding their own business, but as soon as I walked out, all of the heads turned. I felt like I had just said a horrible joke or something, the way they were looking at me, it was a mixture of some people in amazement and others…contempt? I couldn't tell exactly. I figured if I minded my own business I would be fine, so I just kept walking, pretending to not notice any of them. I just made my way to my house, people looking at me weirdly along the way, unlocked my door and went in.

Everything seemed to be exactly the same as when I once left it, except everything was dust-caked. As soon as I entered, poofs of dust rose from the floor, and every time I stepped down a small poof would emit from the ground. Thankfully dust didn't bother me too much, so I wasn't hacking or coughing or anything like that. As odd as it sounds, I kinda like the smell of dust. It makes things feel old and full of history…I think…eh, who knows. I plopped down on my bed, and a huge POOF of dust rose. I didn't really care much. I fell asleep near instantly, happy to be in my own house in my own bed now.


	8. Chapter 8: Blonde Hair and Cinnamon Roll

_**Chapter 8 – Blonde Hair and Cinnamon Rolls**_

Darkness. That was all I could see. Just darkness and nothing else. I knew I was standing, or at least I thought I was, and I sensed that someone else was in the room, despite the fact that she hadn't moved or made the slightest sound. _Wait, how do I know it's a she?_

I didn't try to move, for fear of hurting myself in some way. It stayed like this for a few moments before the girl spoke in a very soft, higher-than-usual pitched voice, "Hello, James."

Instantly I said, "Hinata, is that you?"

She giggled a little, and then I realized that the voice wasn't quite as high of a pitch as Hinata's, and a little more airy too. "No, I am not this 'Hinata' you speak of. You are James of the Hidden Leaf, correct?"

"Yeah, that's me." I replied. For some reason, even though I was in complete darkness and didn't know this girl at all, I felt perfectly comfortable and relaxed. My anxiety and nervous levels were at zero.

"I'm sorry, but I can't show myself to you in person and speak at the same time," she said apologetically, "I tried that once before, but it seemed you couldn't hear me at all."

I then realized who this might be. "You were in my dreams before, weren't you? You were the one with the blonde hair and green dress."

"That's me." She said plainly.

"So…this is also a dream then?"

"Exactly, but I am communicating to you through it. This is my final act of desperation, and hearing of your return, I was hoping you could help."

"Help…" I said slowly, "…with what exactly?"

She sighed and explained, "I am trapped here by an evil man – if you can even call him such – by the name of Orochimaru. He's a very evil person who has been performing inhumane experiments on people, and I am being forced against my will to heal all of his and his two other accomplices' wounds with my special healing affinity."

_Orochimaru…where have I heard that name before…_I thought to myself. Then it hit me, way back when before I had come back to life and had just entered the village, Naruto told me about him:

"_A while ago, The Chunin Exams were taking place in Konoha, where we undergo tests to be promoted to Chunin. During that, a villain named Orochimaru put a curse mark on my good friend, Sasuke. We thought he would be alright, but the curse mark drove him to follow Orochimaru and supposedly gain power from him. Konoha is in shambles right now because of Orochimaru and the Sound Ninja's attack. So now Sasuke is with Orochimaru, gaining who knows what kinds of forbidden Jutsu. There's a lot more to it, but that does it with the quick explanation," Naruto paused and turned to face me, then said, "Someday I'll get Sasuke back and kick Orochimaru's ass! He was a great comrade, and he was like a brother to me. I won't let him be taken from me that easily! But the problem is," Naruto looked down and said, "We can't really do anything about it. We have no leads as to where they are," He suddenly looked cheerful again and said, "So we'll just have to get stronger until we do find a lead! Right Sakura?"_

"I remember being told about him," I started, "Is one of his accomplices named Sasuke?"

She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Yes…Sasuke Uchiha, and the other is named Kabuto Yakushi. How did you know?"

"My good friend Naruto told me all about Orochimaru and Sasuke," I said, "Apparently Orochimaru took Sasuke away from him."

"…I see…" she said.

"But hey," I said, "I can help try to get you out. Naruto and Sakura are looking for Orochimaru anyhow, and I'm in their team, so I may as well. Where are you?"

"…that's…just the problem," she said, "We move to a different base every so often, and each time I'm knocked out with this horrible medicine that Kabuto gives me, so that I don't see where we're going. So I don't really know…"

"Well…is there any way of knowing where you are at all?"

"I'm afraid not…nevermind…this was stupid of me to do, I'm sorry I ever contacted you."

"Hey, wait a min-"

!#$%^&*()

I awoke calmly and immediately noticed that Hinata was just outside of my bedroom doorway. "J-James?" Hinata said questioningly, stuttering, "I…heard that you were back…and I just dropped by to…umm…say welcome back…and stuff…" She slightly blushed as she said this.

"Oh, well…thanks." I said.

I immediately heard rustling coming from behind Hinata and a whisper that I couldn't quite hear, which prompted Hinata to say "Oh, and I umm…also made you breakfast too…to welcome you back with…" Her blush got even deeper, and I didn't realize it for some reason, but I saw that she was holding a tray with steaming cinnamon rolls on it.

"Aww geez," I said smiling, "Thank you so much! You didn't have to go and do that for me!"

"Well honestly…someone else gave me the idea…" she said slowly.

"By the way there are two things I wanna say," I said, "First of all, you can come out of hiding Ino, I know you're there. Secondly, you kinda suck at sneaking."

"Oh, fuck you James!" Ino said (not in a mean way though), coming out of her hiding place behind the wall Hinata was in front of. I just smiled, happy to see Ino and Hinata again, especially Hinata. "So I wasn't really trying to sneak that much, okay?"

"Heh, yeah, that's what they all say." I replied, grinning. Hinata quickly set the tray of cinnamon rolls on top of my dresser – located right by my bed – and moved away. They smelled good, so I picked one up and took a bite.

I was in heaven as soon as I tasted those amazing rolls of deliciousness. They were so amazingly, awesomely awesome! I had never had anything like it before! It was just the right blend of sweet, cinnamon, frosting, texture, taste, everything was so amazing, and despite Ino being there, I couldn't contain myself saying, "Mmm…ohhhh yessss…ohhhh god Hinata, this is amaaaziiing."

Immediately afterwards I realized what I said and how I had said it, and blushed hard at the same time Ino fell down laughing and Hinata said, "Thank you" sweetly.

"I-I think I'm gonna-hah-gonna go now!" Ino said still laughing, "You-haha-two have fun-heh-bye!" And with that, she left, laughing still.

Hinata looked slightly confused. "Umm…are you okay James?" she asked. I was still blushing.

"Wha-uhh yeah, I am, I'm fine." I said, looking up at her from my bed, "Really, these are the most delicious things I think I've ever tasted before. You're an amazing cook Hinata!"

"…Thank you…" Hinata said, slightly blushing.

"Hey, this all just reminded me of something!" I exclaimed suddenly. I think I startled Hinata a bit when I leaped out of my bed and rushed downstairs, grabbed the vase that contained the Rainbow Flower and ran back upstairs. Halfway up I stopped, carefully putting it behind my back so Hinata wouldn't see until I showed it to her, and approached up the stairs slower this time. I got to the top, turned and looked into my room to see Hinata, hands behind her back, looking sweet as usual. I couldn't help but crack a smile as I approached her and said, "I just wanted to give youuuuuu…" I revealed the Rainbow Flower and the Emerald Ring from my back and presented them to her, "These!"

Immediately Hinata started blushing like crazy. I was just smiling; I'd expected her to do that. Slowly, she took the vase with the flower and ring and said, "Umm…wow…thank you…"

I heaved a sigh as I realized that now was the time. I looked Hinata in her beautiful white eyes, and said profoundly, "I'm very fond of you, you know…" All of a sudden I just blurted, "Will you be my girlfriend!"

I was the one blushing like crazy now. She just stood there with a dumbfounded look on her face, as if her mind was trying to process what just happened, but couldn't. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Time itself had stopped in its tracks. Her full white eyes kept latched on my sea green ones, and she was completely frozen. She wasn't even blushing at all. I was just standing, waiting, anticipating, thinking _God man, you had to blurt it out like that like some desperate, lonely whore! Seriously, you REALLY sounded desperate there, what the hell? There were so many better ways to ask a question like that, it's not even funny. What the hell were you thi-_

My thoughts were cut off by a slight peep from Hinata. I focused back on her, and it appeared that she had recovered from the shock a little, as her eyes were on the floor now. I was getting a little anxious now; I wanted her to answer, but I knew how she was, and I knew that I might get a "Maybe" or a "Let me think about it". I was prepared for that, or so I thought.

She looked back up to me suddenly, looked me straight in the eye, and as sea green met full white once again, she shyly smiled and said, "Of course."

I couldn't help but enshroud her in hyper, happy, innocent kisses afterwards.


	9. Chapter 9: The First Date

_**Chapter 9 – The First Date**_

I couldn't believe it. I thought I was dreaming. Even when I asked Naruto to hit me on the shoulder, my mind still wasn't quite able to process this as real. I was going out with Hinata Hyuga, my crush and love ever since I first laid eyes on her over a year and a half ago. It was too good. My mind just refused to process it.

The day after I asked her out, I immediately went to the Yamanaka Flower Shop first thing. This was the last day I had before I was given more missions – probably D-rank – and was officially replaced into Team Seven, and hence was the last free day I had. I needed to find a place that was nice to take Hinata out on a date to, someplace that wasn't Ichiraku's. It's not that I didn't like Ichiraku's, but it wasn't a place I wanted to take a girl out on a date to, especially if that girl's name is Hinata. And if anyone knew what the best place to take a girl out on a date to in Konoha was, it was Ino.

I strolled into Yamanaka Flower Shop, and it suddenly occurred to me that no one else knew that Hinata and I were going out. I never asked, but I thought that Hinata might want it to be kept on the down low for the first few weeks, so I would have to go asking Ino about a place for a date in some other way. I didn't really have time to think, for Ino had waved at me and said, "Hiya James!"

I went up to the counter where she was and said, "Hey Ino!" cheerfully.

"So I hear you and Hinata are finally going out." Ino said with a coy smile, "Is this true?"

_How the crap did she know! _I looked slightly surprised and asked, "Where did you get that one from?"

"I heard it from Sakura," Ino started, "Who heard it from Naruto, who heard it from Kiba, who heard it from Rock Lee, who heard it from Neji, who apparently Hinata told."

_Well, so much for her wanting to keep it on the down low…_

"Huh," I replied, and seeing no point in hiding at THIS point, said, "Well, it's true." In a cheerful tone.

Immediately Ino made an "EEEEEE!" sound upon confirmation, and jumped up and down, clapping her hands and saying, "OMIGAWD YOU TWO WILL BE SOOO CUUUTE!"

I just kinda looked at her with wide eyes, probably giving her a "Calm down chick, you're crazy" look. She didn't really notice, and she asked right afterwards, quite loudly, "So where are you taking her! Huh, huh! You're talking her on a date, right! Right!"

"Uhh, actually, that's why I'm here," I replied, "I figured you'd know some good places to go on a date."

Immediately her eyes lit up. "Kakkoii Restaurant." She immediately said, "Best place ever. It's got everything, and it's really cool! Kakkoii Restaurant, totally!"

!#$%^&*()

I stood at the door Kakkoii Restaurant, dumbfounded. Awesome prices, it looked awesome inside, and everyone that came out seemed very happy. I just wanted to pass by it before I asked Hinata out to it, just in case it was some prank Ino was pulling on me that it was some run-down excuse for a restaurant, but it CLEARLY wasn't. I smiled, satisfied, and headed over to the Hyuga Clan's section of town.

!#$%^&*()

_I knocked on the door, and a tall, mean, strict-looking Hyuga man opened._

_ "Who are you?" he asked commandingly_

_ "Oh, uhh," I replied a little hesitantly, "My name's James, and I was wondering if I could talk to Hinata for a bit."_

_ "What do you want with her?"_

_ "Well, see, I'm her boyfriend, and I wanted to talk about taking her on a date to Kakkoii Restaurant, and-"_

_ He gave me a look, told me, "Don't come anywhere near my daughter, ever!" and shut the door loudly._

_!#$%^&*()_

_ I knocked on the door, and a huge, muscle-racked Hyuga man opened. His breath smelled of alcohol, and he looked uncertain in balance._

_ "Hello," I said cheerfully, "My name i-"_

_ "Who da hell arr youuu, and whadaya want!" he slurred loudly. He was terribly drunk._

_ "Umm…well…see…I-"_

_ "Out wwwi-ith it arredy!" he yelled in my face._

_ "Uhh-okay, I was wondering if I could talk to Hinata about going to dinner tonight is all!" I said quickly._

_ He looked at me for a few seconds, and then punched me so hard it sent me flying about ten yards away. I hit the ground hard, slightly bleeding and hurting like hell, and I heard from behind me, "GED DA HELL OUTTA HERE, AN NEVA COME BACK! NO GUY MESSES WI-ITHH MAH DAUGHTER!" He slams the door shut so hard that the door breaks off its hinges. "GAWD DAMMIT!" he yells as he picks up the door with massive strength and chucks it at where I laid, helpless to defend myself against the flying death. Talk about knocking on wood…_

!#$%^&*()

"Okay, okay, James, calm the fuck down." I told myself quietly. I was thinking of all the different ways this could go completely wrong, and was starting to become paranoid. "When's the last time you've ever seen a Hyuga with THAT much muscle, calm down, calm down." I was nearly to the point of hyperventilating as I stood at the front door of Hinata's House. "Just knock, just knock, just knock…" I lifted up my fist slowly, and finally knocked.

There. It had been done. All I had to do now was to wait.

It felt like hours before I heard footsteps approaching the door. Closer, closer, closer, and as I heard the doorknob turn, my heart skipped a few beats. It opened a little slowly for my taste, too.

As soon as I saw that Neji stood beyond the threshold of the open door, I felt like five hundred pounds of weight had been lifted off me. He was someone I knew, and while we didn't really get along well, we didn't dislike each other either. If anything, we barely knew each other, but at the same time we did.

"James," he said, "I'm assuming you'd like to see Hinata?"

"Hehe, yeah pretty much," I said to him.

He smiled a little and said, "You know, ever since yesterday when you asked her out, she's been very happy. Always smiling, in a good mood. I think you'll be good for her."

I didn't know what to think of this. Neji didn't seem like the "nice" kind, so this wasn't exactly what I expected at all. "Umm…thanks!" I said.

He just nodded, said "Follow me." Turned around and started walking. I followed him into and down the hallway until we came into a large room where there were many Hyuga training with Gentle Fist on training dummies. It seemed like each time they hit a correct nerve point with a blow, it would light up. If not, it did nothing. Hinata was among the Hyuga that were training, but as soon as I came in and Neji motioned for her, she stopped and ran over to us. Neji started, saying, "It seems James has something to ask you. I'll be leaving now for your privacy." With that, he turned around and left the training center.

"Yes James, what is it?" Hinata asked, smiling sweetly.

"Well," I began, "I was thinking, since we're going out and all now, and seeing as though apparently the entire village knows it so we don't have anything to hide; I was wondering if you'd like to go on a date with me to Kakkoii Restaurant."

Hinata blushed and looked down. "That's a really nice place…I would like to, but are you sure? I mean, we could…umm…go to Ichiraku's if you'd rather, if Kakkoii is too much."

"Do you want to go to Ichiraku's instead?" I asked, "Money isn't an issue here at all; I still have lots leftover from when I was reimbursed for what I had a year and a half ago."

"Well…as long as it's not too much…I would like Kakkoii a lot," Hinata said, smiling, "They have zenzai."

"Zenzai?" I asked, "What's that?"

"It's a type of red bean soup, and it's delicious," Hinata said, "My favorite."

"Well then, that works! Any time that's okay for you tonight?"

"Well…anytime after 6…"

"How about 7 o'clock?"

"7 o'clock…that sounds good to me," Hinata said, "What time is it now?"

I checked my wristwatch. "5 o'clock. We've got two hours."

"I was planning on training here until 6, then getting ready between 6 and 7."

"Fine by me. Actually, can I try these things?"

"Oh, that's right! You want to try and learn Gentle Fist! Sure, you can take the one next to mine; it's empty. It's right over here." Hinata motioned towards two free training dummies, and walked that way. I followed, and when I got there, I got into stance, got ready, sent the chakra to my fingertips, and struck my first blow on these training dummies.

No red dot appeared where I had struck. _Dammit. Gotta keep trying though!_

With the handful of Chakra Points I'd memorized, I'd hit the red five times out of the hundreds that I tried.

After a while I turned to Hinata, who was landing red dots nearly every hit. "This is really difficult!" I said to her.

"You just have to practice is all." She said, still concentrated on her own dummy.

"Yeah, suppose so." I said. I checked my wristwatch, and it read 5:32. I'd spent nearly half an hour training straight. I decided to take a break for a bit, then went right back at it, striking three more out of a lot of attempts. Time passed quickly, and the next thing I knew, it was 6:00.

After I'd checked on just that, I told Hinata, "It's 6:00 now."

She stopped striking the dummy, turned to me and said, panting yet cheerful, "Oh…okay…just…lemme…catch my breath…"

"Hey, you ok? Maybe you should take it easier next time?"

"No I'm…I'm fine…"

"Okay, just making sure…"

I kinda worried about her. Did she train this hard all the time? _She's gonna exhaust the life span outta her! _

After that, I hanged around at Hinata's place (at her request). It wasn't like I had to get dressed; Kakkoii Restaurant wasn't THAT fancy, though it was better looking than Ichiraku's. Her place wasn't anything too special; just your standard few rooms, kitchen and bathroom separated by paper walls.

I was idly chatting with Neji at around 6:30 when I saw someone I didn't recognize enter the room. He was a Hyuga, very tall, and with brown hair. He was clad in simple black robes.

"Neji," he asked, "Who is this? He isn't a Hyuga."

"This is James," Neji replied, "He's the one Hinata always talks about." I slightly blushed at the prospect of her talking about me.

"I see." The Tall Hyuga replied, and without any further communication, he left to a different room in the house.

I wasn't so sure about his aura that he put off. It felt hostile, and yet okay at the same time. "Who was that?" I asked Neji.

"That was Hiashi," Neji replied, "He's Hinata's father."

_Yikes! THAT was her dad!_

"Huh." I said, sounding mildly interested, "Do they get along?"

"Not as well as one would hope." Neji said. I left it at that; anything more I figured Hinata would tell me when she was comfortable with telling me.

At 7:00 Hinata and I left for Kakkoii.

!#$%^&*()

"I'll have…a large bowl of zenzai please." Hinata said to the waiter.

"Would you like a side with that?" The waiter asked.

"Umm no thanks." She said to the waiter. The waiter scribbled the order down on her notebook and looked at me for my order.

"Could I get…" I looked at my menu, looked at Hinata, and smiled. It didn't really matter if I ate at all; being with her on this date was something I'd always dreamed of doing. I was happier than I'd ever been my entire life, or so I could remember up to. The waiter cleared her throat, and I came back to my senses to look down at the menu again. Slightly blushing, I said quickly, "Umm, jumbo ramen bowl please." She scribbled it down and left to report to the chef.

"Gotta admit," I said, "This place is a lot bigger than Ichiraku's."

"…yeah…" Hinata said, sounding detached.

I noticed her tone and picked up on it immediately. "What's wrong?" I asked her, softly and trying to be comforting from across the table.

"Oh no, it's-nothing's wrong," Hinata shook her head while smiling, "It's just that…I'm just…I…"

"Taking it all in?" I asked.

"Well yes…but…it's just…wow…" Hinata trailed off for a bit, then came back and said, "I never thought I…would…you know…be here…with you…on a date…"

"Hmm…maybe I'm going a bit too fast?" I suggested.

She shook her head again and said, "Oh no, not at all, it's just that…I'm not used to it…is all. You'll have to give me time to figure this…stuff…out. I don't really know how dates and girlfriend-boyfriend things work and it's all just so-"

"It's alright to feel that way," I said softly, "It's okay. I don't really know either. I just thought that this was something people who were together did. If it makes you too uncomfortable, we don't have to do this again if you don't want."

"No, don't get me wrong, I love this all," she replied, "But I'm just not…used to it is all."

I smiled and said "It's alright, you'll get used to it. Just do what comes naturally to you, and things'll be fine." Hinata smiled at that, and when she did, my heart made a triple take.

_I love you so much Hinata. I don't ever want to even think of losing you._

The rest of the night went beautifully. Hinata got her zenzai, which made her very happy, I got my jumbo ramen, and at the end of the night I walked her home, gave her a kiss goodnight and left happily to my house. Once I got to my house, I hit the hay immediately, exhausted yet extremely happy.


	10. Chapter 10: Enter the Chuunin Exams

_**Chapter 10: Enter the Chunin Exams**_

A couple of weeks had passed. Hinata and I spent much more time together than ever; to be honest, you barely saw her and me apart. Whatever the case, we just did things together. We trained together (she gave me a few pointers on Gentle Fist style, and now I can consistently hit the dots on the red one out of every five or six times), we walked together everywhere, and pretty much spent all of our time together except when we each went to our own houses to go to bed and when we had a mission to perform. It was everything that I'd dreamed it to be.

I was out on a D-rank mission, dealing with cleaning up cat crap from the client's many cats, with Shikamaru and Kiba one day, and Kiba said, "Hey, I hear you and Hinata are going out now?"

I smiled. Something about people saying that just made me so happy. I suppose it reminded me that it was all real still. "Yep." I said as I scooped a nice hunk of cat crap from the litter box.

"I'm almost jealous," Kiba said, "But eh, it would be weird if we dated anyways. We're more brother and sister than anything else."

"That's right, I remember, you're in the same squad as her." I'd forgotten, or it just hadn't really entered my mind, until now.

"Yeah," Kiba said, "We're hoping that Hinata can become Chunin in a few days."

I stopped everything that I was doing and looked at Kiba. "Huh? Chunin? I heard all you got to Chunin a while ago."

"Yeah well, Hinata hasn't gotten to there yet. She got close last time, but it just wasn't quite enough. But she's been training really hard and has improved a lot since then, so she should get Chunin no problem."

"When are the exams anyways? I'm still a Genin, and I want to become Chunin!" I exclaimed, "I'd feel left out!"

Shikamaru said, "They're in four days. Apparently some newer people are entering. There's this one chick dressed in black and uses a whip that I got an odd feeling about. Be careful of her if you're going to enter."

"Duly noted," I said, "I'm still going anyways."

"I'd expect so," Shikamaru replied, "Knowing you, you'll probably be fine. Oh hell, this is taking way too long." Shikamaru used his shadows to pick up all of the cat crap at the same time and throw it in the dumpster.

!#$%^&*()

Four days went by way too fast for my tastes. All the training I'd gotten in was more Gentle Fist, and getting reacquainted with my Lightning techniques. I'd also thought up interesting combination attacks for the Shadow Clones I had, but I didn't have enough time or energy to test them at all. The day before The Chunin Exams, I rested up and practiced only techniques that didn't fatigue me too terribly; things like Shuriken and Kunai practice that were more basic and didn't take as much, yet I felt I needed to review because of the fact that I'd spent a year and a half in a coma.

Then the day of the Chunin Exams came.

Hinata and I entered the room where everyone was told to meet at if they wanted to take the Chunin Exams. There were less people than I expected, around 18 or 20 total including us two. A few faces caught my eye; there was a pale girl with black hair, dressed in black with a black whip hanging on a loop which seemed to be sewed to her dress. When I looked at her, she looked back at me suggestively, and I kinda shied away from that, especially since Hinata was right by my side. Another one that caught my eye had dyed black, spiky hair with a black and dim-orange suit that seemed to be bouncing up and down on his feet the entire time in all of the exams. The bouncing, hyper guy was with a very oriental-looking girl wearing a shiny, dark purple outfit and carrying a well-made spear on her back. In comparison to Bouncing Guy, Oriental Girl looked extremely calm and under control, but content with her bouncy comrade at the same time. There was a very odd looking group of five there that all had piercings and all looked like they were "group brooding" over something. A blonde girl dressed in simple white clothes and carrying a sword and shield looked among everyone, determined and ready for anything. There were a few others there that didn't catch my eye all that much.

"It looks like we're the only ones we know that are here." I said to Hinata. She just nodded. I could tell that she some combination of nervous, excited and determined at the same time. Finally, a door opened on the other side of the room, and we were told to come in to take the Chunin Exams.

We were told that there are three parts to the Chunin Exam. The first part was a written test, the second a contest and the third a tournament.

The written test wasn't much to talk about, except that the stakes were high and a lot of people chickened out by the end of it. I think all of those "brooding group" guys chickened out. Hinata and I both passed, and advanced to the second part of the exam. At this point, I believe about twelve of us total were left.

As for the contest, we were placed in a three-man group (Hinata and I stayed together, and the Bouncy Guy joined our group), placed in different parts of a very large training ground that people called the Forest of Doom. Each group was given an "Earth" scroll or a "Heaven" scroll. The people who reached the middle of the forest first (which was located at a large tower structure) while their group was in possession of both scrolls advanced to the last part of The Chunin Exams. This meant that, since twelve of us were left, and we were separated in groups of three, two groups wouldn't make it. I noted that Oriental Girl, Black-Dressed Girl and Sword/Shield Girl were all in one group together.

Bouncy Guy got landed with our group because, well, he simply came to us and said, "Hey hey hey can I be part of your group please!" We just shrugged and said sure. He introduced himself to us as Alex.

We got handed an "Earth" scroll right before we entered the forest, the instructor said "Go!" and we were off.

"Because each of the teams entered through opposite entrances," I started, "It's going to take some looking to find them. Hinata, can you use your Byakugan to see where they are?"

"Sure thing," Hinata said,"Byakugan!" Her eye veins popped out, and Alex was grossed out by this.

"EWW WHAT THE HELL!" Alex yelled.

"It's part of the technique!" I replied, "Now keep quiet or else everyone will hear you and know where we are!"

"Sorry." Alex said apologetically.

"Found a group," Hinata said suddenly, "Close too, and they've got a Heaven Scroll. 80 meters…that way!" she said, pointing.

"Then that way we go!" I said, making a Shadow Clone of myself and the Earth Scroll we had just in case. "I'll send this Shadow Clone in first to assess the situation and what kind of group they are." My Shadow Clone simply nodded and darted the way Hinata pointed. "And now we wait." I said.

A few minutes later, my Shadow Clone came back holding the "Heaven Scroll" the team had. He tossed it to me, I caught it, and it poofed away. I was shocked at how easy that had been, and how weak that team was. _No wonder those guys didn't catch my eye before…_

Hinata, Alex and I headed to the center, and with a few Genjutsu confusions, finally made it there. Apparently we were the first, as I saw the group led by Oriental Girl running towards here with both scrolls in hand as well. We went inside the tower and opened the scrolls there, as we were told to, and Kakashi appeared out of them.

"What the crap?" I said audibly, "Kakashi-sensei, why the hell did you just come out of these scrolls!"

"Because I felt like it," Kakashi said sarcastically, "No, actually I'm here to tell you congrats, you made it to the final part of the Chunin Exams.

Kakashi told us that the last part would be a tournament, but coming out on first wouldn't automatically grant you a spot as a Chunin. Rather, coming in first would give you more of an opportunity to show your prowess as a ninja, and those who are deemed ready are promoted to Chunin. In other words, you could be promoted Chunin whether you came out on top or not, depending on your performance. He also informed us that this tournament wouldn't be held immediately, rather, it would be held a month from now. Also, due to the fact that there are only six people, two Chunin that were promoted the last Chunin Exams would be added randomly, making it eight and a fair tournament.

"But Kakashi," I asked, "Who are the two Chunin that'll be in there?"

"We don't know yet," Kakashi replied, "Even if we knew, we wouldn't be allowed to tell you until a month from now. It'll be a voluntary thing, that's all I'm saying"

So we were to train for a month and get ourselves ready for the Chunin Tournament. Kakashi warned us that we might be facing our own friends, as it's completely random. Hinata and I talked about it for a bit afterwards, and we both were fully aware that we might very well have to fight each other in the Exams, so we agreed to just have a friendly fight with it, almost as if we would be training, but a little more serious. Not much, though. Until then, we trained.

The day of the tournament was upon us before we knew it.


	11. Chapter 11: The Chuunin Tournament

_**Chapter 11 – The Chunin Tournament**_

All of us in The Tournament were told to take a spot upon the front seats until we were called. Hinata and I sat down at the first front row seat we spotted; angle didn't matter due to the fact that the arena was a full circle.

This arena was kind of like a coliseum; the place was PACKED. Seriously, it seemed like everyone from Konoha and half of everyone from the rest of the Hidden Villages came to see this event. I had no idea it was such a huge deal, I mean come on, I just wanted to be promoted to Chunin!

Beforehand we were all handed a paper which was to contain the bracket matches. After all of us had settled in to our seats, we were told to look at them. The matches were as follows:

James vs. Alex

Choji vs. Lily

Hinata vs. Tenten

Alice vs. Luna

_Dammit…I'm first…I hate being first…and I hate being last…*sigh* well, nothing much I can do about it now._

Alex, as he was looking at the lineup at the left of me, started jumping up and down saying, "HAHA! I GOT YOU FIRST! AWESOME! Hey, hope we have a good fight, alright? Woohoo, I'm ready!"

_This guy's more hyper than me on my good days!_

I smiled politely and said, "Yeah, this should be pretty good."

"Would James and Alex please come down to the arena?" Genma, the tournament proctor, said. I got up and headed down, and Alex did the same on the opposite side.

Now we were down, actually inside the arena. It was crazy. All of the people encircling us, and it was just me, Alex and Genma. We positioned ourselves so that we were properly across from each other. The stadium grew silent.

"Begin." Genma said, waving a hand down and jumping out of the way.

"Hehe, ready James?" Alex asked.

I smiled again and said, "Well duh." I assumed this guy would be pretty quick on his feet, so I gave myself some extra chakra on my feet and legs to move around with. Instantly he dashed to me with incredible speed, and threw a punch that I just barely blocked away. In that blocking process, I spun myself around with the momentum, ducked to dodge his next attack in mid spin, made the hand sign quickly, came back around and hit him with all my might yelling "Lightning Paralysis Jutsu!" My palm surged with electricity, and it connected right on Alex's chest. Alex made an "aieaieaieaieaieaieaiea" sound before I launched him off the ground and he landed on his back a few yards away. _Heh, he leaves a lot of openings. Good thing too; I won't have to use my new technique quite yet. *sigh* It burns a lot out of me…I wanna use it only when I absolutely have to._

Not five seconds after he hit the ground, Alex had gotten back up and was bouncing on his feet again. _Wow, this guy's got recovery!_ I made a hand sign, "Lightning Shock Jutsu!" I threw my fingertips in his direction and they emitted a short electrical shock, but Alex had jumped to dodge it right before I'd gotten it off. I didn't have enough time to counter when he came back down from his jump and socked me one right in the face. I stumbled a few feet and I thought I felt blood in my mouth. _Ow…that hurt…_ I heard his footsteps coming towards me, and I back flipped right above him to dodge his attack. In mid flip, I kicked Alex in the back of the head and lifted myself off from him at the same time, landing perfectly. I quickly made the hand sign, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!", while he was still disoriented from the kick to the back of his head. Three other Shadow Clones appeared in front of me, and we all prepared our lightning attacks. One of them ran in yelling, "Lightning Paralysis Jutsu!", but Alex had recovered and easily dodged the attack, disposed of the Shadow Clone, and repeated for the other two Clones, all with amazing speed and agility.

_Dammit! Alright, it's time for a different approach._ I made the hand sign again, but before I could summon another Shadow Clone, Alex had already appeared right in front of me and uppercut me. I went maybe three feet in the air before I realized Alex was above me. _He must have jumped right after uppercutting me! Oh shit!_ In mid air, Alex kicked me downwards, and I hit the ground hard.

I was dizzy, disoriented, and I think it knocked the wind out of me. Alex charged at me once more, jumped, and readied an almighty punch. I rolled over before he could smash my face into the ground, instead he hit the ground itself.

"OWWWWW!" Alex yelled "GOD DAMMIT THAT HURT!" He was distracted, and I saw my chance. Within a second, I'd already focused my chakra into my fingertips, rolled over again to where he was standing, and hit him on the heel with my Gentle Fist. He immediately collapsed on that leg, I made the hand signs, yelled "CHIDORI!" and raised up, striking him right on the chest. A flurry of lightning emitted from my hand as I struck, and the blow sent him flying all the way crashing back into the stadium's wall, then hitting the floor.

He didn't get up.

_Oh no…I didn't want to kill him! I really hope I held my Chidori back enough!_ I ran over to him and knelt down to check if he was alive. He still had a strong pulse, but he looked pretty much KOed.

"The match goes to James." Genma announced.

I pumped my fist in the air. "YES!" The audience applauded, not wildly, but it was a pretty good applause. I laughed at the fact that I could still taste blood in my mouth a bit. _Thank goodness I didn't have to use my new technique…that would have been bad._ Sakura and another Medic-Nin rushed out with a stretcher and started to hustle Alex off the field. I stopped Sakura real quick and asked, "Is he alright?"

"He's just paralyzed; he'll be fine in a few days." Sakura said, "Now I gotta get him out of here for the next match."

"Oh right," I said, "That's all I wanted to know. Thanks." I smiled, and she did back before she rushed off the field with Alex and the other Medic Nin.

"Lily and Choji, please come down to the stadium floor." Genma announced.

I quickly rushed back to my seat next to Hinata so that Lily and Choji could battle it out. As soon as I got there, she hugged me fiercely. "Uhh, hi there, how are you today?" I said jokingly.

"I was so worried about you!" Hinata nearly squealed, "After that kick Alex did, I didn't think you'd make it!"

"Heh, well, somehow I did." I said back to her. The crowd quieted down again, which prompted us to sit back down and watch the next match.

Lily, the oriental-looking girl wearing a shiny, dark purple outfit, held her spear at the ready. Choji simply stood there.

"Begin."

Lily immediately stabbed her spear down on the ground and stood in a hand-to-hand combat stance. Choji aimed his fist at Lily and yelled "Partial Expansion Jutsu!" His entire arm and hand grew and lengthened, rapidly approaching Lily to strike the first blow.

Lily jumped and dodged the blow with ease, and landed on the Choji's extended wrist. The wrist rapidly retracted with Lily on it, leading right to kicking Choji in the face, lifting off of his head, making a hand sign and yelling, "Earth Release: Reverse Hidden Mole Jutsu!"

The spear disappeared from where it was stabbed into the ground, and reappeared from the ground, impaling Choji as Lily landed perfectly behind him.

Everyone gasped. My mouth was gaping, I didn't know about anyone elses. I heard Luna from afar yell, "Holy shit!"

Even Genma was taken aback before saying, "Dah-the winner's Lily!" quickly. Lily simply came back into the seats and sat down. Two Medic-Nin rushed out immediately and gathered Choji.

Hinata used her Byakugan for a few seconds, then deactivated it, saying, "She's either very good, or he's very lucky. No vital organs were hit."

I sighed, relieved. I didn't want people to die, though I knew that there was a fair chance of it happening anyways. _Still, that fight was fast…_

"Hinata and Tenten, you're up next." Genma announced.

"Please be careful." I said to Hinata solemnly as I kissed her on the cheek. She smiled and blushed a little, then got up and headed down.

Hinata and Tenten faced each other in the arena.

"Begin."

Hinata went into the Gentle Fist style stance and activated her Byakugan while Tenten brought out a scroll from which a Bo Staff appeared out of, and she took that stance. Hinata rushed at Tenten, and started slashing at her with Gentle Fist, but Tenten dodged all of it and counterattacked with her staff, which Hinata also dodged. She grabbed one end of the staff, slammed it down to the floor and stomped on the middle, breaking it in half, and then started striking at her once more. Tenten pulled out a thicker scroll than before and opened it, throwing many kunai and shuriken from it. Hinata dodged all of them except for one, which instead of dodging; she took hold of in mid air, twisted around and threw back at Tenten. Tenten got hit by the kunai thrown by Hinata on the shoulder, and while it wasn't too deep, it was enough to distract her from Hinata, who came charging at her and hit her a good few times. Hinata re-posed herself, and a green Yin-Yang symbol appeared under her.

_Oh baby, here it comes!_

"Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms!"

It hit Tenten in full force, all thirty-two times. She was out.

"Hinata wins." Genma declared. The medic-nin came to hustle Tenten off the floor, while Hinata came back up to sit next to me. When she arrived at her seat, I leaned over and placed an overjoyed kiss on her, saying, "I was worried about you!"

"Hehe, it's okay, I'm fine."

"Glad to hear it!" I hugged her tight again. Hey, I was excited, what can I say?

The crowd started to quiet a little, and Genma said, "Now, for the final battle of the first round. Alice vs. Luna. Would both please come down?"

The pale girl with the black hair, lacy black dress and whip entered the arena, and a blonde girl dressed in simple white clothes bearing a small sword and shield followed.

"Which one's which?" I asked Hinata.

"Umm…I think the one in the black is Luna, and the one in the white is Alice."

"Oh, okay then."

"She's right!" Alex said, who I didn't notice was sitting to the left of me.

"Whoa, when did you get back!" I asked.

"Eh, what you did wasn't really damaging to me; it was the paralization that did me in. But eh, I always recover fast, so I'm already back here now!"

"Oh good, I'd held back with the Chidori so you wouldn't be killed."

"YOU DID!"

"Yeah, why?"

"Damn, how much did you hold back by?"

"A lot."

"DAMN! That woulda incinerated me or something!"

"I know, that's why I held back. I'm not interested in killing anyone."

"Well hey, thanks man! You seem pretty swell!"

"Heh, you're welcome." I smiled as I said that, and turned my attention to the battle that was about to take place.

"Begin." Genma stated as he got out of the way.

Alice immediately made a few hand signs, placed her hand on the ground and said, "Ice Release: Ice Dome Jutsu!" A thick dome of ice formed from the ground and completely domed Alice inside. Luna grabbed her whip and lashed out at her with it multiple times, but the ice dome didn't suffer even a scratch. Alice made a hand sign and said something, but due to the ice dome she was in, I couldn't hear what she said. A spike of ice formed from the dome, pointing and launching from the dome directly at Luna. She dodged it with ease, but as she dodged, another one was launched, and another, and another, repeatedly one after the other. Luna just kept dodging and dodging as she made a hand sign, and said, "Shadow Release: Fireball Jutsu!" She blew and dark red and black flame came gushing out of her mouth onto the ice dome.

It did nothing.

As Luna looked in shock at what little her Fireball Jutsu did, one of the incoming ice spikes scratched her shoulder, ripping through her black dress. After that, she furiously knocked an ice spike away, ricocheting it onto the dome and cracking it.

_So that's the dome's weakness…itself!_

Luna must have caught on to this, because she grabbed some of the ice spikes laying on the floor and impaled the ice dome with them, shattering the dome and spikes in a brilliant blast of ice specks. Luna then moved in with her whip, lashed out at Alice, grabbed her entire body with her whip and somehow levitated Alice and the whip off the ground and into the air, tightening the whip's grip.

After a few moments, Alice said, "Okay, okay, I give up! Like, seriously!" And the match went to Luna. It was the only match that no one was rushed off in a stretcher for.

Genma, who was filling in the brackets, now looked up to all of us and said, "Congratulations, you've made it to the semifinals." The four of us remaining; Lily, Luna, Hinata and I, all braced ourselves for the first match of the semifinals. I held Hinata's hand, and she gripped it tight.

"The first match of the semifinals," Genma announced, "is James vs. Lily."


	12. Chapter 12: The Semifinals

_**Chapter 12 – The Semifinals**_

Is it a bad thing to say that, considering what had happened between Lily and Choji, I was a little scared? Okay a lot scared?

I stood up from my seat and made my way down to the arena without even talking to Hinata at all. I was too scared to. I racked my brains for what she could have in store. I thought back to the battle beforehand between Lily and Choji. _Dammit…she only did one move! I can't assess much out of that, other than to watch the ground._ I had made it to the center of the arena, where Lily faced me. I was still scared. I couldn't help it.

"Begin" I faintly heard Genma proclaim.

I jumped back immediately, deciding to try a new technique of mine. I made a few hand signs, spread my palms towards Lily and yelled "Lightning Web Jutsu!" As the name suggests, immediately a web of electricity formed and propelled itself towards Lily. She tried to whack at it with her spear, but it didn't break. Even better, it started to wrap around her, but right before it got to the point where it actually touched her skin, she made hand signs and said "Earth Release: Hidden Mole Jutsu!" She slipped through the ground as if it were water, leaving a hole behind where she left. I immediately got up on one of the arena walls using my chakra with my foot, and hung there. _No sneak ground attacks for you!_

Unfortunately, I was right above the hole she had left behind. Why, you ask, is this a bad thing? As I stood up there, contemplating my next move, I heard, "Fire Release: Volcano Spout Jutsu!" From underground, I heard a bubbling, faint at first, but increasingly louder and louder. The next thing I knew, great fire and lava burst out of the hole. I narrowly got away before it could hit me, but I could definitely feel how hot it was. It was oven-worthy, to say the least.

As I dodged that attack, I could feel a very slight shaking beneath my feet. Whatever it was, I needed to do something about it. I jumped out of the way right as her spear shot straight up from where I was standing. I grabbed the spear and took it as my own for reassurance. "What now, I got your weapon!"

It's ironic because right as I said that, the spear disappeared in my hands, leaving a puff of white smoke.

_She cloned her spear! But that means…oh shit, I gotta get off the ground NOW! _No later did I think that did I hear a great rumbling from the ground, much louder and wider of a scope than the last one. I booked it to one of the stadium's walls, jumped, and with my feet imbued with Chakra, hung on the end wall of the stadium, above the ground. Right as I did that, I saw a spear stick up from the ground as it had before. And another. And another. It wasn't long until the entire stadium was pin cushioned with spears sticking out of it. If I had been in that, I would have been dead. I carefully planned my next move. I had to draw her out of hiding somehow before I could take her on, but how? I looked towards the big hole where she used her Volcano Spout Jutsu, and got an idea. I took out a few exploding tags, lit them, ran over to where the volcano hole was, and chucked them inside as deep as I could. Then, due to that, I ran as fast as I could back to a wall of the stadium. I planned to collapse the very ground she was hiding in to get her out, and when she got out, it was game over. I made a few hand signs and said "Lightning Web Jutsu", spreading a lightning web out into the air, keeping it there with my control.

Then the exploding tags went off. Hard. I don't use exploding tags often, so I wasn't used to their effects, but DAMN they blew up! They did just as I wanted to, because shortly after they blew up, Lily came flying out from the ground, looking surprised. I clenched my fist, commanding my Lightning Web to capture her, and in mid air, that's exactly what it did. She couldn't do a thing because she was still airborne while the Lightning Web surrounded her and took hold. She dropped to the ground, struggling to get out, being zapped the entire time. Lily was out.

"This match goes to James." Genma stated.

Phew. Finally I could relax. That was a really tough battle that took a lot out of me. I dropped from the wall I was hanging on, released my Lightning Web to let Lily go, and went back up to the seats. At this point, I was exhausted, but I knew I had one more match to go. Still, I was ecstatic I made it to the finals. I wondered who I would go up against…

"Hinata and Luna, please come to the field" Genma said. Luna was down there in pretty much an instant. Hinata got up, and looked to me. I smiled, and she did too as she went down to the field. Luna and Hinata met in the middle, Genma split between them.

"Begin."

Luna immediately formed hand signs and said, "Shadow Ball Jutsu!" A ball of what looked like pure darkness appeared in her hand, and she hurled it at Hinata, who was just lightly grazed by it. She didn't seem too harmed by it though. Hinata ran to her, but it seemed like her running had slowed down. With every attack Hinata threw, Luna blocked out of the way with apparent ease. It was as if Luna was toying with her. After a few more blows, Luna hopped out of the way, made a hand sign and said, "Shadow Release: Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Out of pitch black smoke, five other Luna clones appeared around Hinata. They all took out their whips and simultaneously whipped at Hinata, who dodged all but one. The whip she was hit by immediately wrapped around her, trapping her arms. The other Lunas wrapped their whips around Hinata as well so that she was trapped by six different whips coming from six different areas.

_Oh shit! _I was up on the stands, but I found myself wanting to go down and help her. Of course, I couldn't for obvious reasons. I got scared. She could squeeze Hinata like a toothpaste dispenser if she wanted to. _Dammit dammit dammit! _

"Byakugan!" Hinata shouted, activating said optical Jutsu. She turned to look at the whips entangling her, and I saw small streaks of blue where her hands were covered by whip. In a matter of a few seconds and very slight maneuvers of her wrists and fingertips, Hinata had Gentle Fist styled herself out of the entanglement. But there was something odd about the fact that her hands were surrounded with what looked like weird looking chakra lions. "This is my newest attack!" Hinata said, running at a bewildered Luna. She threw both fists at Luna, which she blocked, but it seemed not to matter when both chakra lions emitted a great roar and blasted Luna in a cannon-like fashion, sending Luna flying to the other side of the stadium. Hinata appeared to have known which one was the real one amongst the other Shadow Clones, as all of the other clones dissipated in a black smoke as soon as Luna was hit.

Luna looked seriously hurt, but she still got up. "Alright girl…time to end this…the _hard_ way…" she said as she got back up, emphasizing the word 'hard' in a suggestive tone. "Didn't think it would come to some of my better techniques, but I guess it has. No choice now." She made a few hand signs, and cracked a smile. "Summoning!" She bit her thumbs and placed both hands on the ground. "Bats from Hell!" She jumped away from where she performed the summoning right as a moderately large, swirling black circle formed on the ground. The next second, hundreds of bats flew out of it viciously, aimed straight towards Hinata.

Hinata threw herself into stance, and a yin-yang symbol appeared under her. She moved her arms in a flowing yet methodical way. "Protective Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!" The bats connected with Hinata right as she shielded herself with flurrying blows, and each bat that came into contact pretty much disintegrated on the spot. I could actually hear each individual, sickening blow to all of the bats. As the bats thinned, so did Hinata's Protective Palms, until both were gone.

Luna saw her chance. With her shadow, she lengthened her whip until it was the right range, and lashed at Hinata. Hinata, too exhausted, wasn't able to block it and took the hit full force, staggering backwards. "You put up a nice fight, girl, but you should probably give up before I get you whipped." I could tell Hinata was tired as hell, and struggling to stay up. I wanted to shout that it was over, for Hinata to give up so she'd be okay…but I didn't feel like it was my place to do that. So I just stood – I was as far front, standing as close as I could to the field below – and waited.

Luna sighed and said, "Alright girl, you aren't giving up, so I'm just gonna make this easy for you." She made a few hand signs and said "Shadow Ball Jutsu." A blob of solid darkness appeared in her hand, and she hurled it at Hinata. It connected with Hinata easily, but it didn't seem to do much other than stick to her. "All of my attacks are infused with Dark Residue. My whip, my bats, and especially my Shadow Ball, which is nothing but pure Dark Residue. Even when a little gets on you, it makes you feel like you're a good twenty pounds heavier. With that giant Shadow Ball stuck to you, you should feel about two-hundred pounds heavier." Hinata tried to move, but stumbled and fell on her front. "You can't even move now. Flip her over, she's done."

_So that's why she seemed slower than usual during the battle…_

"Hinata has been immobilized and is unable to fight anymore. Luna is the winner." Genma declared. Everyone applauded, even me. Hey, it was a good battle, and I was pretty sure Hinata was going to be okay seeing as though afterwards, Luna went and dispelled all of the Dark Residue. I ran all the way down the stadium to Hinata and hugged her.

"You did great." I said sincerely. Hinata squeezed me a little when I said that.

"You really think so?" she asked

"Of course." I replied.

Genma cleared his throat, parting Hinata and I from our embrace, and he announced, "James and Luna will receive a one-hour break before the match begins. Use it wisely."

With that, I went back up to the stands to sit down with Hinata for a while. We talked for a bit, and I assured her that she did really well out there. Alex, Lily, Alice, and even Luna all said she did really well in the battle as well, which made Hinata even happier. "Hell girl," Luna started, "Usually no one can last as long as you did with Dark Residue on you the entire battle. That's some Impressive shit right there. You're lucky to have such a strong one, James." She said, turning to me. Both Hinata and I turned into tomatoes. We pretty much chatted and had a good time with each other for an hour, but eventually Genma said "Alright you two, the match'll begin soon. Get down here, will ya?"


	13. Chapter 13: Final Chuunin Exam Battle!

_**Chapter 13 – Final Chunin Tournament Battle: James vs. Luna!**_

I stood in the arena, facing Luna. She had a black, knee-length, lacy dress with a whip hanging from it on, black combat boots, and was very pale skinned. She wore very little makeup, and it seems as though she didn't need to as well. Her black hair flowed down past her shoulders and to her mid back. She was quite attractive, I'll give here that.

"The final match, James versus Luna, is about to begin." Genma announced. Everyone took their seats and stopped whatever they were doing to watch.

I readied myself, as did she.

"Begin."

Luna immediately lashed out with her whip, which I dodged easily. I was wary of the fact that she could manipulate shadows, and assumed she could do more with the more shadow she was provided, so I tried to stay in the sunlight as much as possible. Lash, dodge, lash, dodge. She tried to throw a Shadow Ball at me, which I also dodged. I tried to bide my time as much as possible to find a suitable opening. She bled her thumb and put both hands on the ground. "Summoning! Bats from Hell!" I knew what was coming, so I immediately made the hand signs and put a good amount of chakra into making a larger-than-usual Lightning Web, capturing all of the bats that came my way.

"Hah, I got a sack of ba-ats! I got a sack of ba-ats!" I singsonged after all of them were captured. With the motion of a hand, I ignited the web into massive shocks, disintegrating all of her bats.

"Yeah well…" Luna trailed off as she made a few hand signs. "Shadow Release: Shadow Imprisonment Jutsu" The shadows being cast from the wall of the stadium moved quickly towards me, detaching from their place, and forming under me. Before I could even do anything, shadow rose up from the ground in thick threads and had trapped me in a circular shadow cage. "Now I have a sack of yours." Luna said to me while I was in the shadow cage. I didn't think about what she meant by that. I tried everything: Lightning Paralysis, Shock, I even tried to Chidori my way out. Nothing. This cage was as solid as steel. I kind of felt like I was trapped in a black outline of a flower.

I sighed. _Guess I'm gonna have to resort to that technique after all. My newest one._ I made many hand signs before ending, and said calmly, "Lightning Release: Hundred Lightning Bolts Illusion"

"Whoa how many bolts did you sa-" Luna said before being cut off.

!#$%^&*()

Dark. Very, very dark. Luna could only see herself. Nothing else. Not the ground she stood on, not the sky she stood below, no surroundings. Absolutely nothing. I could still see her though.

"This is starting to creep me out…" Luna said.

I raised my arm. Blue sparks started to emit from my hand, gathering up to the very top of my index finger. It was pretty bright light, so Luna could see it.

"There you are!" Luna said, "Why the hell did everything turn black, huh! You're an idiot; my chakra is based on how much darkness there is in my surroundings. The more shade, the better. But you, my friend, have just doused all the light, meaning pretty much everything is under my control!" She raised an arm and said, "TAKE THIS!"

Nothing happened.

"Wha…" Luna began, "How…why…my jutsu doesn't work here?"

I simply smiled and said, "Ah, but it's not that dark." I pointed at her with my index finger where all the sparks had gathered, and at my will, the sparks formed into a bullet and fired, hitting Luna on the shoulder.

"Ow!" Luna said, "The hell was that!"

I smiled and said "A tracker."

"Tracker for what?"

"This." I gathered my chakra to the illusion and said, "Electrify!"

Out of nowhere, a huge thunderbolt lashed at Luna, hitting her dead on. Another one came, and another, and another, all in rapid succession. I was counting them in my head as they came. _51, 52, 53…_ Luna didn't even have time to scream. _87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99._

As soon as the 99th bolt hit, no more bolts came. "Release." I let the Genjutsu go, revealing the arena once more, completely unchanged. Luna was practically rooted where she stood, completely paralyzed from the ninty nine thunderbolts she just underwent. Her shadowy cage crumbled, and I readied my Chidori. She was just standing there. I held my Chidori back a bit to not severely harm her, ran towards her, and hit her with it dead on.

_100._

Luna went flying a good ten yards or so, falling on the ground, seemingly limp. She was done.

"The match goes to Ja-" Before Genma could finish, Luna's whip had thrashed at me with all its might, seemingly of its own accord, and hit me dead on. I reeled back, stumbling as I was caught off guard, feeling heavier somehow. I looked at where the whip had struck me, and a black goo had formed around there. I tried to get it off, but couldn't. It was there for good, and it made me feel much heavier.

"You honestly think that would have put me down, silly boy?" Luna asked, slowly rising from the ground. Her whip hovered from the ground into her loophole in her dress designed for carrying it.

_I can't believe she's not done after going through such excruciating pain and a Chidori to boot! She can't have much left though; she looks tired out. _

"Let's come to the climax and end this." Luna said, making many hand signs. "My strongest attack, just for you, my dear."

I'll admit, I blushed on the inside when she called me that.

She made a good amount of hand signs. "Arcane Release: Shadow God's Dance," she said in the most seductive, yet vicious tone.

She suddenly collapsed to the floor, smiling. From her mouth, a drop of…_black blood!..._landed on the ground. I stood there, not knowing what to make of any of this at all.

The shadows in the arena started to move. They all gravitated towards the drop of black blood on the ground until it made a small, dense circle of darkness on the floor. A few seconds passed, then quite suddenly, the darkness on the ground reached out and wrapped itself around Luna's entire body. It grew larger, consumed all of her, and made her look like some sort of demonic monster.

(**Author's Note: I'm really not quite sure how to describe what Luna looks like at this point inside the story, so for those of you who can't get a good visual from the story itself, think Susano'o, only darker. And with a whip instead of a sword.)**

At this point, this Shadow God towered yards over me. I'll be honest, I was scared pissless. The thing was big enough that it took up almost half of the stadium. _Luna's inside that thing!_

_ …that sounded wrong James…_

The giant Shadow God brandished its oversized whip at me. "What do you think of me now, James-kun?" a filtered Luna's voice spoke.

Despite everything, I still blushed a teensy bit when I was called 'James-kun'

"Prepare yourself!" the filtered Luna voice shouted as the Shadow God raised its whip. The whip came crashing down to where I was. I gathered every bit of chakra I had to my feet and blasted myself to the left, too narrowly dodging the giant black whip.

The ground was completely crushed where the Shadow God had hit. I shielded my eyes from the rubble and dust from the initial impact.

_She can't have much left. If I can just bide my time until she weakens, I'll take her down._ I made the hand sign. "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Three clones appeared before me. "You guys can't get hit, or else you're surely out," I started, "But at the same time, this Shadow God thing's pretty easy to dodge. Just be careful and pummel her with ranged attacks!" My clones nodded and scattered, and I stood by, gathering my own chakra while the others constantly threw Lightning Balls at her.

Yes, it had occurred to me that I was throwing my balls at Luna. Shut up.

It didn't take long for me to notice her Shadow God form becoming smaller over time. "We got this guys, just a little more time!" I said to my clones. Everyone was pumped. We might have a chance! Eventually I could see the outline of Luna inside of the Shadow God's body. I readied my Chidori, and was about to lunge.

Suddenly, the Shadow God protruded three spikes of pure dark from its body, which lunged at all of my Shadow Clones and made quick work of them.

"I've been playing with you up to now, James-kun!" Luna's slightly less filtered voice now spoke. "Now it's time to finish you!" A bunch of dark spikes extended from the Shadow God's body and pierced me from about twenty different directions.

Time stopped for everyone. You could hear the entire crowd simultaneously gasping, tensing up. I faintly thought I heard Hinata let out a yelp.

I smiled quietly from behind the Shadow God.

I readied myself as silently as I could.

I bounded towards the outline of Luna I could see inside the Shadow God.

I let my Shadow Clone, pierced in about twenty different places in its poor Cloneish body, disperse.

Everyone gasped or let out otherwise appalled sounds.

I readied my Chidori about two meters from behind Luna in midair. By the time she noticed I was right behind her, it was far too late for her or her Shadow God to do anything.

I hurled my hand at her outline and cried, "CHIDORI!"

My hand felt like it was being almost sucked into the Shadow God, as if it was trying to absorb me. I kept going with all of my strength, and finally, I felt my Chidori-filled palm connect with Luna herself.

You see, the embarrassing part about all of this (and something I didn't know until I was told after the Exams) is that I hadn't realized Luna turned around in shock to face me, half a second before my Chidori connected with her. At that point, I couldn't alter my Chidori's course because it was already too late and I was about a quarter of a second away from her.

Effectively, and purely accidentally, I Chidori-groped Luna's left boob.

She was launched out of the Shadow God from the impact, which caused the Shadow God to slowly fade away. Luna went flying to the other side of the arena, her body slamming against the wall about five feet above the ground. She stuck there for about half a second from the sheer force of impact before she fell to the ground, completely limp. I landed on my feet afterwards, bobbing and weaving for balance, and then eventually falling on my butt.

So I can't make very good landings often. It's always been a weak point for me. Especially after a long battle like that.

I was panting really hard, exhausted out of my mind, and barely registering Genma declaring me the victor. After that, everything turned to blur. I hoped that I didn't overdo it to Luna (and laughed at myself in my head for the innuendo's sake), worried for a little, thought about Hinata for a little, and I fell unconscious on the spot.


	14. Chapter 14: Get Outta My Head!

_**Chapter 14 – Get Outta My Head!**_

**Author's Note: I'm gonna start adding honorifics at the end of names more often now in my stories. Back when I wrote **_**Saved, **_**I didn't even know what an honorific was, as I was watching the English version of **_**Naruto**_** back then. Now that I started watching the Japanese version (and started wondering why I watched the English in the first place) I actually know a lot more about it, plus all of the fandom of Anime in general. So yeah.**

As I woke up in a familiar Konoha Hospital bed, my first thought was, _…Yup….been here a few times before…way too many times before…wow, I get hurt too often._

"_About time you woke up, James-kun!" _I heard a voice inside my head say. It sounded familiar, and a spark of hopefulness went off in me.

_…Kaminari…is that you?_

_ "Kaminari! I don't know who the fuck you're talking about, but I'm no Kaminari! Silly, silly James-kun, can't even recognize my voice?"_

_ …LUNA! THE HELL ARE YOU DOING IN MY HEAD!_

_ "Oh calm your hormones, James-kun. My unique Arcane chakra gives me telepathic powers. I'm actually lying in a hospital bed in the room next to you."_

_ …how bad is it?_

_ "How bad is what?"_

_ How bad did I hurt you?_

_ "Oh, that? Pff, is little James-kun worrying about me? So cute!"_

_ …don't call me that. It embarrasses me._

_ "What, cute? Or James-kun?"_

_ Both._

_ "Awwwh, but I like to! You know, when it comes to boys, I very rarely add '-kun' to the end."_

_ …is that so?_

_ "Mmmhmm! But you're different than the rest of those boys."_

_ …is that so?_

_ "Yup."_

_ …you realize I'm taken, right? Don't get any ideas._

_ "You realize I really don't care, right? You'll just be my favorite little boy toy, James-kun."_

_ …wow…just wow…_

_ "Besides, I've never really been one for the whole 'Being Together' type thing. Monogamy's so overrated. At any rate, I wanted to tell you a few things."_

_ Oh?_

_ "Yup. First off, that was a damn good match we had back there. You fulfilled my needs and satisfied me to the fullest."_

_ …ohmywow…_

_ "Secondly, just thought I'd let you know that it was totally hot how you came to the climax and finished me off."_

_ What do you mean by that? Andohmygawdwow…_

_ "I mean you totally cop'd a feel on me at the end there."_

_ …wha?_

_ "That last Chidori? Yeah, serious hand-to-boob action right there. It was sexy."_

_ …I…wha…but…I had…I didn't…I…_

_ "Aww, now he's stuttering. So fucking cute!"_

_ SHUDDUP! ANYWAYS, sorry about that, I had no idea. Must have been too focused on getting you out of that Shadow…god…thing…I didn't notice at all._

_ "Pff, don't apologize. It was awesome."_

_ …I'm not even going to begin to go into the many reasons why that's wrong, and I'll just move on to the next subject instead._

_ "Alright, alright, I get it. At any rate, the main reason I'm totally inside of you right now is to tell you that everyone who participated in the Chunin Tournament, excluding the already Chunins of course, were promoted."_

_ Seriously!_

_ "Yup. Both you and I are Chunin now. I heard it from the old lady herself. Alex, Lily, Alice, and Hinata are also all Chunin now."_

_ …epic._

_ "Indeed!"_

_ …so this Telepathy thing…how does it work?_

_ "Well, I can't read your entire mind if that's what you're asking. I don't know what you're thinking unless you intentionally think it towards me. That goes for everyone. I can also control whether or not I leave my telepathic link open for a person or not, meaning they could talk to me in their heads first rather than me doing all the work. As far as I know, it works no matter how far you are, but it only works for me. I can't give two people a link and then those two people can talk to each other, nor can I go into a threesome."_

_ I'm sure that must suck for you sometimes._

_ "And blow. But that's beside the point. Point is, I'll leave this link open, just between us. Hehe, I'm sure we'll have lots of fun. Let's just keep this as our…dirty little secret."_

_ …uh…huh…I see…_At that moment I spotted Hinata through the door's window, walking straight towards my room. _Hey Luna, I gotta-_

_ "Yeah yeah I know, your little girlfriend's come to see you. I saw her pass by and figured. See ya, James-kun."_

The door opened, in walked Hinata, Sakura and Tsunade. The first to talk was Sakura, who immediately commented, "Well, at least we know your blood's pumping fine. Your face is about as red as a cherry."

"wh-WHA!" I exclaimed. "No way! W-why would it be like that?"

_"I heard that from the other room by the way."_ Luna said in my head.

_SHUT. UP._

"In any case," Tsunade said, "I brought Hinata along with me for a couple of reasons, one obviously being that she wanted to see you anyways, and the other to formally grant both you and Hinata your Chunin status."

I looked up happily, faking a little surprise even though I already knew beforehand. Hinata immediately perked up and said, "Really!"

Tsunade nodded to Hinata. "Congratulations. As of now, you and James are now Chunin."

I smiled and said, "That's awesome!" Hinata politely thanked Tsunade as well.

_"You fake it terribly, you know that James-kun?"_

_ Get out of my head._

"Tsunade-sama," Sakura stated.

"Yes, I know," Tsunade replied, "We'll leave you two be then," she said towards Hinata and I. For some reason, as they left, I felt my face get slightly hot at the prospect of being left in a room with Hinata by ourselves.

After they left, Hinata turned to me, and I opened my mouth to speak just as she did, and at the same time we both said, "You did great out there!"

We both chuckled at that.


	15. Chapter 15: Shippuden

_**Chapter 15 – Shippuden**_

_"Because I…"_

I awoke with a start, sitting up immediately. I had a dream that…"Nah," I said to myself, "Can't have been more than a dream…" I flopped back into my bed. It had been one day since the Chunin Exams. I had been allowed to come out of the hospital, mainly because I had no real injuries. Fatigue just got to me is all.

_You're just being paranoid. Go back to sleep._ I rolled over to see what time it was, and was surprised to see that it was already 12:30 PM.

_Okay, maybe I shouldn't go back to sleep!_ I got out of bed, completed my morning routine of breakfast, brushing teeth and shower, and headed out. _I've still got some serious catching up to do, especially now that I'm a Chunin. I should probably focus more on other areas rather than doing nothing but Gentle Fist, and I've got my Lightning moves down really well anyways. I think I'm gonna make the rounds like I did a year and a half ago. Only, I'm not going to be beaten by Shikamaru so easily this time, and I'm actually going to go up against the others as well. Alright, who first? I wish Naruto were here, I really wanted to learn that thing of his. Rasengan I think is what it was called. Or was it something else like-_

At that moment, Naruto came rushing in from the front door, closing it, locking it and saying panicked, "James, you gotta hide me or something, I showed Sakura my new Sexy Jutsu, and she got really mad at me! Hide me!" Immediately Naruto jumped and hid under my bed.

Sakura burst into the room, nevermind the lock, and said, "Where the hell is that knucklehead!"

I could feel the sweatdrop forming on my head from all of this. "Moreover, when did he get here?"

As though sins were forgotten, Sakura said, "Oh, just a few minutes ago he arrived back."

Naruto crawled out from under my bed and said, "Yup, and now I'm back! Can't wait until I get to show you my new training skills James. Wait…James…"

Naruto looked at me, then to Sakura, then to me. I smiled politely; he looked back at Sakura, then back to me. He pointed a finger at my slowly, and started, "You…aren't…you're…supposed to be…I even saw…"

An awkward silence filled the room.

Naruto had a Class-A Freakout.

"HOLYCRAP! SAKURA, JAMES CAME BACK FROM THE DEAD AND HE'S A ZOMBIE AND HE'S GONNA EAT OUR BRAINS AND THIS IS REALLY BAD AND AHH I'M SCARED!" More miscellaneous yells broke out from him as he promptly hid himself under my bed again.

Sakura was trying to drag him back out, explaining that I'm not going to eat anyone's brains and that he's totally overreacting, and that I'm the same ol James I was a couple years ago. I was laughing so hard that I thought I was gonna die from gut splitting action.

After everything calmed down, Sakura and I explained everything over some tea I had made for them.

"Well," he said after the explanation, "Good to have you back then!" He grinned his goofy grin at me, and I returned the favor. "So," he started, "I hear you and Hinata got together?"

I blushed a little and said, "Yup, sure have." I looked at Naruto for a while, remembering the dream I had.

"…_love you."_

That was told to Naruto in the dream. Not me.

_It's just me being stupid._ _Damn subconscious._

"Hey, Naruto," I started, "About that Rasengan of yours…"


	16. Chapter 16: TRAINING! Rasengan Pt 1

_**Chapter 16 – TRAINING! Rasengan Pt. 1**_

**IMPORTANT AUTHOR'S NOTE: Any chapter that starts with "TRAINING!" is a Training Chapter. These are basically chapters explaining how James is introduced to new jutsu and how he hones his abilities with help from person to person. These chapters are optional to read. If you'd like to skip to the next chapter that doesn't have TRAINING! in the title, and assume that James learned what was in the given Training Chapter's title, feel free. If you want to read all about it, go ahead. I intend for them to be shorter, more comical chapters anyways, so reading them probably won't be that much of a big deal. But now you know.**

"So," Naruto started, "You want to try learning Rasengan again eh?"

"I remember the last time I did it, and it didn't work at all," I replied, "But I've trained more, I've got about double the chakra I had before thanks to Mikaboshi being gone out of me, and thanks to Gentle Fist training, I'm really good with Chakra control. So I think I can do it now."

I had asked Naruto to teach me Rasengan back at my place, so he took me out to the Training Area afterwards.

Naruto grinned. "Alright, I'm gonna teach it to you exactly how Ero-Sennin (pervy sage) taught it to me." He tossed me a water balloon half full of water.

"I'm supposed to pop this by rotating my chakra around the inside, right?" I recalled.

"You remember?"

"Yup! Alright, let's try this!" I pumped chakra into it and rotated it all around the place.

It popped nearly immediately.

Naruto and I looked at each other for a long time, both of us wide eyed.

"I…can't believe how easy that was…" I said slowly.

Naruto broke. "DA HELL MAN! IT TOOK ME A HELLUVA LONG TIME TO DO THAT TEST! YOU JUST DID THAT ON YOUR FIRST TRY!"

"Ehehe…I've got a lot of Chakra control I guess…" I said.

"Fine, next test!" He tossed me a rubber ball full of air. "Pop that in the same way!"

"Alright!" I said, catching it. I pumped Chakra into it, rotated it around like crazy. It got bigger, bigger, bigger, bumps appeared on it until finally-

A hole burst out of it. Chakra spewed out of the hole, and the ball quickly deflated.

"No such luck for the first try here I guess…" I said.

"Don't sweat it," Naruto said, "This one was really hard for me to do too. It'll just take time and practice is all! One thing to keep in mind though," he said, "Try and focus your chakra at the very center."

_Focus my chakra on the very center, eh?_ _I'll do that next time!_


	17. Chapter 17: TRAINING! Chakra Boosted Str

_**Chapter 17 – TRAINING! Chakra Enhanced Strength**_

Naruto had left to visit Sakura and Kakashi-sensei again. He had said something about going through the bell test again, but I didn't really pay attention. For the rest of that night, and the next night, I did nothing but try and pop that rubber ball for the Rasengan test.

The third day I was trying still, but to no avail. I kept putting holes in the rubber balls. _Dammit…am I not putting enough Chakra in?_

"You trying to learn Rasengan?" a familiar voice called to me. I turned around to see Sakura standing about three meters away.

"Yeah, but it's not going too well…" I said solemnly, "But I'm going to try and learn something from all of my friends! That way I can catch up, and I'll have a lot more to work with!"

"Hmm…so you were planning to come to me at some point then?" she asked.

"Yup!" I said to her.

"So…would you like to learn a technique then?"

"Wha- you can teach me now?" I asked.

"Well duh, I wouldn't offer if I couldn't."

"Awesome! What technique?"

"Hmm…thing is, I've noticed you're a bit of a weakling when it comes to sheer strength."

"…oh…thanks." I said sarcastically.

"So I think I'll teach you how to control your chakra to give you extra strength."

"Extra…strength?"

"Watch." Sakura looked toward the field, clenched her fist and pounded the ground. Nothing happened for about half a second, then the ground started to collapse, cracking everywhere and crushing itself in for about thirty meters away.

It was utter devastation.

"Whoa…I didn't know you could do that Sakura…"

"Hellyeah! All you have to do is gather Chakra to where you want to hit from, and release it at the same time as you connect."

"Huh, I'm pretty good with Chakra control, so I think I can do this pretty easy…" I clenched my fist, gathered Chakra to my knuckles, pounded the ground at the same time as release. "GROUND POUND!" I roared.

The ground around where I hit cracked for about a two meter radius. That's all. No devastation like Sakura, no crashing or anything. Cracks. That's it.

"Hey, that's not bad for a first try," Sakura commented, "Just keep practicing and you might get around my caliber someday!"


	18. Chapter 18: Left Behind

_**Chapter 18 – Left Behind**_

"You can't be serious!" I protested to Kakashi-sensei. "You're telling me I can't come!"

Kakashi sighed. "I understand why you'd be upset," he started, "but the fact of the matter is, despite you being a Chunin, you haven't had near as much experience as Naruto or Sakura since you woke back up. This is Akatsuki we're dealing with. They're more powerful than you could imagine. There's really not much you can do here until you're back to top shape."

I opened my mouth to protest again, but then stopped myself. "Back to top shape? What do you mean by that?"

"You haven't noticed? Your movements are more stiff than usual, even now. Slower. One and a half years' worth of being in a coma doesn't go away like that, you know."

I thought back. _Have they really? I feel like they're normal though…but I wonder if I just haven't noticed…_

"On top of that, you're too fatigued from your training, AND it's an order from the Fifth herself." Kakashi finalized.

I sighed. It was all I could do.

Konoha had just gotten word from Suna that their Kazekage, Gaara, had been captured by Akatsuki, and since the two countries were allies, Konoha acted by deploying Kakashi-sensei and his team to help them search for Gaara. I was being told all of this from Kakashi a little ways away from the front gate, where Naruto and Sakura were waiting. They both looked slightly confused.

"Stay here, get some rest and maybe more training in, and don't try to follow us, alright?" Kakashi said.

It frustrated me that I wasn't able to go, but everything he said I couldn't really argue with. Or rather, I didn't want to argue with. I'm not exactly the confrontational type. I nodded solemnly and said, "Alright."

"Hey, don't be so down," Kakashi said, "Think of this as more time you'll be able to spend with your 'Hinata-chan' if nothing else!"

I blushed. "I don't call her that. I don't want to embarrass her."

Kakashi chuckled, waved, and walked away to Naruto and Sakura. Halfway there, still walking, he turned his head and said, "You should try calling her that! I'd love to hear about the reaction!"

"Quiet you!" I exclaimed to him. He laughed and kept walking. As the three of them passed through the main gates, I felt a little abandoned…a little ostracized, as though I wasn't really ever part of that team to begin with.

_Eh, I don't think I have to worry about them. They're strong, way stronger than me anyways. Maybe Kakashi's right. Well, in that case I'll just train more while they're gone to catch up! But I've been training for a week straight almost, so I think I'll take it easy for the rest of the day today._ I heard a rustling behind me, and I looked to see Hinata. "Oh hey Hinata, didn't see you were there!" I said, happy to see her.

I saw her blush a little. "D-did Naruto-kun and the others already leave? I wanted to…see them off…"

"Yeah, they just left," I replied, "Sorry, I figured you probably wanted to see Naruto off too." She blushed a little at the mention of his name. "Well anyways, I think I'm gonna try figuring out that rubber ball test for the Rasengan."

"You're learning Rasengan?"

"Well, trying anyways. It's about as difficult as playing two guitars at the same time!"

~!#$%^&()_+

Darkness. Nothing but darkness. I couldn't see a damn thing. Did I mention it was a bit dim? I heard a voice seemingly in my head.

"James-kun?" it asked

"…mmmgnnnnehhh…" I replied oddly

"….James-kun?"

"Ehh…huh…someone calling me?"

"You can hear me, James-kun?"

"Uh huh, but who is this?"

"It's Aurora…"

"Oh…hi Aurora."

"…"

"…"

"…well this is awkward…sorry James-kun…."

"It's fine. Anything in particular you needed from me?"

"Not really…I suppose I just wanted to get to know you more…"

"Huh…y'know, you remind me of someone I know."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Her name's Hinata. She's actually my girlfriend, believe it or not."

"You've mentioned Hinata before…she's your girlfriend?"

"Yup. Though…"

"Yes?"

"…I'll be honest, I'm a little scared…"

"…of?"

"Well you see, before I came around, she had a lot of feelings for Naruto. You've probably heard Orochimaru talking about him before."

"I've heard his name mentioned once or twice, yes."

"And Naruto just came back recently from training. Hinata hasn't really see Naruto since, but when I mentioned him to her, she blushed. I'm beginning to think she still has feelings for him that she's trying to hide, and I don't really know what to do in this case."

"…Don't force things…that never does good. When you're ready, talk to her about it. But if it was just a blush, I wouldn't worry about it too much. You said it yourself that she had feelings for him…those don't instantly go away…but that doesn't mean that she has no feelings for you either."

"…huh…thanks…I appreciate it…I mean, I didn't mean to all of a sudden make you my psychiatrist or anything."

"It's okay. I'd rather that then sit here alone, bored out of my skull."

"True enough. Thank you, Aurora."

"No problem. Uhh…James-kun?"

"…yeah?"

"…You're blushing."

"…what."

"Your face is all red."

"IS NOT! How can you even see it anyways!"

"Just because you can't see me doesn't mean I can't see you."

"…mehrhrhhhhmmmrrrr…shuddup…"

Aurora giggled a little, then said, "Well, seems like you're waking up now James-kun. Goodbye for now."

~!#$%^&(_+

I opened my eyes, and I was back in my own bedroom as usual.

_Blushing…yeah right…the only reason I'd be blushing is because she reminds me of Hinata a little, but even that's stretching it!_ I then looked down and realized there was a slight lump under my bed. An anime sweatdrop slowly formed upon my head, then slowly turned into an anime vein.

_You. Have. GOT. To. Be. KIDDING ME. No, I refuse to accept that! It's bull! BULL I TELL YOU!_ I went and did my morning routine, slightly angry at myself, went out, and headed down to the Hyuga's place to begin honing my Gentle Fist techniques.


	19. Chapter 19: TRAINING! 8 Trigrams 16 Palm

_**Chapter 19 – TRAINING! Gentle Fist Honing/Eight Trigrams 16 Palms!**_

"You're not flowing as well as you're supposed to," Neji commented, "Your movements are too jerky. Here, let me show you." He then performed a flawless Eight Trigrams 32 Palms on a dummy, making all of the hit pressure points light up.

_God damn showoff…_

I was in the Hyuga's Gentle Fist training area with Neji and Hinata, and they were trying to help me with the kinks and abilities for said style of Taijutsu. I guess I had about the ability of the average 4-year-old Hyuga right now, or so Neji made it out to seem.

"Also, you're hitting the pressure points too hard," Neji continued, "It only requires a soft tap and a small outlet of chakra from the fingertips. Now try again."

"Alright." I said. It was frustrating, but I couldn't argue with Neji at all because, quite plainly, he was right. My arms and wrists _were _jerky, and I _was _hitting too hard for a style blatantly named 'Gentle Fist'. I posed, focused my chakra, and thought of water flowing down a stream as I executed my flurry of blows. I lightened my hits and took it a little slower rather than the more abrupt way I was trying for before. Surprisingly, every point I hit after making that change lit up, confirming that I, in fact, did hit the points correctly.

"You're getting better!" Hinata said happily. I grinned sheepishly, and Neji gave me an approving look.

"Seems like now you're ready to go the next step." Neji said.

"You don't mean-!"

"I do. Eight Trigrams techniques."

I started to get really excited. This is what I'd been waiting to hear for a while now.

"Nothing too big though," Neji added, "We're going to start you out with 4 Palms, and double up accordingly to how many you can handle."

"I can deal with that." I said, still excited.

"You know the position, right?" Neji asked.

"I've seen you execute it enough; I think I can figure it out."

"Give it a shot then. Only four at first though."

"Alright!" I got into position, distributed chakra accordingly through myself. A large, green-illuminated Yin-Yang symbol appeared below me. "Eight Trigrams, Four Palms." I said calmly, and I hit the dummy. "One palm". Hit it twice. "Two palms." Four times. "Four palms! No sweat whatsoever!"

"Then let's amp it up to eight now." Neji said.

"Alright!" Cue pose and symbols. "Eight Trigrams Eight Palms! One palm! Two palms! Four palms! Eight palms!" After that round, I felt a slight bit drained, but not too bad. "I think I can go more." I said.

"If you think so," Neji said, "But be careful; each time it doubles on itself, so does the chakra required and the energy consumed."

"I assumed as much." I replied as I got back into position and invoked the symbols on the floor. _This one might be hard._

"_Sounds like fun!" _Luna said in my head.

I smiled, amused. I'd gotten used to Luna's sense of humor, and sudden pop-ups in my head. I refocused, readied myself, and…

"Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms!" First hit. "One palm!" Two hits. "Two palms!" Four hits. "Four palms!" Eight hits. "Eight palms!" I was tiring at this point, but nevertheless braced myself and flurried. "Sixteen palms!"

Well, on the upside, every one of the points I hit lit up, adding up to a nice attack that'd probably do really good damage at the very least. On the downside, I wasn't used to executing that many attacks in such a short amount of time, and I collapsed on my ass a few seconds afterwards from exhaustion. "I think that'll be all for today."

"To be honest," Neji started, "Don't be too surprised if sixteen is the highest you can get without actually seeing chakra points. Going up to thirty-two will be very, very difficult without, maybe impossible."

"Hey, I've gotten farther than I expected myself to get to already. I'm happy!" I replied.

"And even if you can't get any further," Hinata added, "it's still quite a decent attack."

"True that," I replied, "Say, Hinata, weren't you going to learn me up some defense?"

"Oh, that's right!" Hinata said, realizing.


	20. Chapter 20: TRAINING! Gentle Fist DEF

_**Chapter 20 – TRAINING! Gentle Fist Defense!**_

"Defensive techniques are pretty simple with Gentle Fist, really," Hinata told me, "It'll be more difficult for you because you don't have the 360 vision the Byakugan gives, but I'm sure you'll be able to make use of it at least in front of you!" She went across the room and grabbed what looked like simple, circular white slabs. "These are light, so they won't hurt you. I'll throw these at you, and you hit them away with Gentle Fist. Almost as though you were attacking them from out of the air, but more pushing them to the side than hitting them directly."

I assumed position. "Ready whenever you are." She threw the first slab slow, and I easily knocked it away with Gentle Fist. We continued for a few minutes, her gradually throwing them harder. I didn't do very badly at all, only missing a couple due to slacking off.

"Well, I'd say I did that alright!" I said to Hinata.

"…uhummm…" she said. Well, not really said, more like noise-made.

I paused for a moment. I knew the sound she made; it was an 'I want to point something out but I'm too timid to without prompt first' noise. "Oh boy, what did I do wrong?" I asked, smiling good-humoredly.

"Well…umm…they're supposed to break if you block them correctly."

"…oh…uhh…well I mean I was deflecting them."

"Yes, absolutely, don't get me wrong, your aim was really good! It's just…that might as well have been a regular block away rather than Gentle Fist."

"…odd. Anything you can think of that might be the cause?" I asked.

"I…don't really know. I know with the littler kids, they can't break them because their chakra control isn't as refined. Here, let me see your chakra flow when you use it." She walked to me, and I put up my fingers and showed her how I pointed my chakra when using the style. "I believe this is the problem. See how your chakra's point here is rounded?" She touched my hand and traced where she was talking about – me blushing the entire time.

_Damn…her hands are really, really soft!_

She then brought her own hand up and showed her own chakra flow. Sure enough, mine was WAY rounded, whereas hers was finely pointed. "Mine isn't even perfect; you should see Neji's, but this is pretty much the standard." I felt weird that I was acting more like Hinata than Hinata was, being all blush-y and stomach-flutter-y. She seemed…calmer around me than around anyone else. Maybe that's why she decided to say yes and be with me. It almost seemed like I made her more stable.

Oh right. I'm supposed to be talking about my training in this chapter. Sorry.

"Try to make this," Hinata said, gesturing to my chakra stub, "more like this," this time gesturing to her own chakra point.

_I get the point, _I cheekily punned to myself in my head. "Alright, I'll give it a go." I looked at my chakra stub, and visualized the sharpening process of a pencil. I tried to spiral-shave excess chakra off of my chakra, and while it was difficult, I got it to a nice point after a while.

"Like this?" I asked, slightly straining from holding it.

"Perfect!" she exclaimed happily, "Now let's try again." She proceeded to the back of the room (I took the chance to admire her shamelessly while she wasn't looking for the few seconds she was turned away) and grab another slab. "Ready?"

I took position. "Yup!" She threw it, and I hit the slab aside with the newly refined chakra point, shattering it completely. "Perfect!" she said excitedly.

I don't know what quite possessed me, but I ran up to her, glomped her, and kissed her passionately afterwards.


	21. Chapter 21: TRAINING! MindBody Switch

_**Chapter 21 – TRAINING! Mind-Body Switch Technique!**_

After a good portion of time spent on Gentle Fist training, I decided to branch out a bit in terms of jutsu. I wanted to learn more from my peers and such; I still felt the need to catch up, despite being Chunin now. Normally the first person I would go to for such things would be Sakura, but she was still on a mission at Sunagakure with Naruto. Since Hinata and Neji were both Gentle Fist specialists, and I'd learned a lot from them already, I went to the first person I thought of:

Ino Yamanaka.

I don't know why I thought of her to go to first. One would think maybe Shikamaru or Kiba, Tenten even, before going to Ino for new Jutsu, but my brain moves in mysterious ways, and I tend not to question it, as it seems to be right a lot of the time.

So, during a beautiful morning in Konoha, I decided to walk down to the Yamanaka Flower Shop to ask her about it. As I entered, the familiar scent of many mixed flowers hit me, and I couldn't help but inhale deeply to take them all in.

"Hey James, how's it been?" I heard a familiar voice call from the other side of the store. I looked to see Ino manning the checkout counter, as she was usually.

"Yo Ino!" I replied cheerfully.

"So I'm guessing you're here for a gift for Hinata?" Ino said. I couldn't tell if she was teasing or actually being serious.

"Well, actually no," I said, "I'm here for you."

A slight beat.

"Whoa there James, you're not single, and that's a bit fast even for me!" Ino exclaimed, grinning the entire time.

I gave her that flat 'really?' look and said, "You know I didn't mean that."

_Ino and Luna should be friends. Seriously._

_ "She seems my style; I like it." _Luna replied in my head.

_Do you just lurk around in my head whenever you feel like it?_

_ "Yeah, pretty much James-kun."_

_ I can't believe I'm getting used to being called that by you._

_ "Oh, fun!"_

"Anyways," I started, "Basically, I wanna learn more jutsu from people, and my goal is to go around and learn one jutsu from all of my friends, and I was wondering if maybe you'd be okay with helping me?"

Ino thought about it for a moment before saying, "Sure, why not. You gotta wait 'till I get off though."

_"That's what she said." _Luna said suggestively.

_I totally thought the same thing. Not gonna lie._

"Alright then. Works for me." I said. So I waited there.

Amidst waiting, at one point Ino said suddenly, "You know, looking at it, you and Hinata are kind of a weird couple."

"…umm…okay?"

"I hope you don't mind me harping on it," Ino started, "But you and her are both somewhat shy, and VERY submissive. Two submissive people in a relationship, frankly, doesn't make for very good…_bed situations._"

"That's an unusual euphemism. To be honest, I never really gave that aspect of a relationship much thought."

"You're still a virgin, right?" Ino asked.

"The hell kind of question is that?"

"The kind that could make or break a relationship!"

"Oh that's bullshit! Something like that would _not _make or break a relationship."

"Okay, fine, just tell me because I'm curious!"

"I'll tell if you tell." I said to her, grinning.

"Of course I'm still a virgin!"

"I am too. Also, I call bullshit." I said playfully.

"WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, A SLUT!"

"Sorta, yeah." I said, grinning, hoping for a reaction.

Ino whacked me hard for that one. It was _so_ worth it.

Afterwards, I said, "I hope you know I was kidding. I'd never think of you as a slut."

Ino grinned and said, "Yeah I know. You still deserved to be hit for it though!"

Ino and I chatted friendly for a while before her shift ended. She then took me to some training grounds, and announced, "Alright James, today you're gonna learn the Mind-Body Switch Technique! Basically, it's an ability that allows you to take control of somebody else's body! You have to beware, though, that during this, your own body falls unconscious, so you have to be careful and make sure your own body isn't exposed too badly."

_"Damn this sounds sexy!" _Luna exclaimed in my head.

_Shush you._

_ "Hey, you suppose you're gonna take control of her body?"_

_ I think not. She'll probably have something to test it on._

"Because I trust you enough," Ino said, "I'll let you take control of my body ONLY for practicing purposes."

_"Told you so."_

_ Shut up._

_ "You're gonna love it."_

_ Shut UP._

"Are you sure about that?" I asked tentatively.

"Well, who else did you have in mind?" Ino asked, as though it were obvious all along.

I paused. "Well, you have a point there." I said. "Show me how to do this crazy shit."

"Right! I'll just show you the pose, then you can actually try it on me." She showed me the hand sign, the pose (that looked something like you were about to aim a laser beam from your head by putting your index finger and thumb together), then said, "Alright, try it on me now."

"Okay then, I'll give it a go." I made the hand signs, the pose, and said, "Mind-Body Switch!"

I started to feel really weird, as if I were moving forward against my will, sort of like a conveyer belt was carrying me towards Ino. Everything got really blurry and started to fade, then clearer again as I began to focus in on my unconscious body. I felt a bit dizzy, and I shook my head back and forth a little, my extremely long, bright blonde hair hitting my face.

_Wait my hair isn't that long or bright blonde._

I slowly lifted my arms, realizing that my skin was much more exposed than usual. Most of my clothing was gone, with the exception of a purple chest piece and-

_…I have boobs._

_ …I HAVE BOOBS!_

Then I realized the true weirdness of this all. _WHERE THE HELL DID MY…MY…__**PARTS **__GO!_

_ "It's because you're inside of MY body now, smart one!" _I heard a voice in my head exclaim.

_"Ooh, you're inside of her," _ Luna said suggestively, "_Very kinky. And here I thought you were faithful, James-kun!"_

_ Shut up Luna._

_ "Wait who's that?" _Ino asked.

_Oh, that's just- wait you can here Luna?_

_ "Seems so," _Luna said, _"I guess in a way, we're BOTH inside of you, Ino! Gawd this is awesome!"_

_ "…Ooo…kaaay…wasn't aware of this." _Ino said, slightly confused.

_Please don't tell anyone. It's really against my will._

_ "Keep telling yourself that, James-kun!" _Luna said teasingly, "_You know you secretly LOVE mind rape!"_

_ It's funny how you admit to it!_

_ "It's funny how you didn't deny it." _Ino said.

_Oh gahdammit, now Luna AND Ino are ganging up on me._

_ "THREESOME NO JUTSU!" _Luna exclaimed at the top of her mind-lungs. I had the odd feeling that a rather small, furry fiend on a bridge way back when had said something similar during my travel before I found myself in Konoha.

_"Oh if only that WERE a real jutsu!" _Ino exclaimed. _"Hey James, I know you really want to, and we're reasonably in private, so you can go ahead, get it out of your system and fondle yourself."_

_ W-WHAT! _I made Ino's face that I was controlling blush incredulously.

"_Just do it! I know you want to!"_

To be honest, yeah, I did want to. I'm a guy, I can't help it. And when other than now does a guy ever get a chance to be in control of a very attractive female's body, with that female GIVING PERMISSION to go ahead and feel herself up?

So I slowly, tentatively, lifted my arm, and felt her boob. Softly at first, then I started grabbing at it. It felt…_weirdly arousing._

"_I think he's enjoying it." _Luna said. I could hear Ino just rolling on the floor laughing in the back of my mind. I didn't care. I was liking this. _A lot. _I grabbed harder. It was odd, being totally turned on and not having a giant tent pitched at my mid-regions.

And then I started panicking because I thought I was peeing my(her)self.

_AHH INO INO INO INO HELP HELP INO INO HELP I DUNNO WHAT'S GOING ON, I'M REALLY SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO!_

I heard an audible facepalm in the back of my head.

_"That's NORMAL, smart one!" _Ino exclaimed.

_Uhh…you're kidding me. Girls…pee themselves when they're turned on?_

Now I heard TWO audible facepalms in the back of my head.

_"You really are a virgin, James-kun." _Luna said in a 'you're hopeless' tone.

_"Shall I explain?" _Ino asked Luna?

"_Either or. I don't care. But he's gotta learn __**somehow**__"_ Luna said.

So they both explained _it _to me.

After the explanation, I was just standing there, still in Ino's body.

_…that's all…very…disgusting…and disturbing…and I don't ever want to do that with anyone…ever…_

_ "That's because you're a virgin,"_ Luna said, "_Trust me, it's AH-MAY-ZING."_

_ "You'd know!"_ Ino retorted, "_To be honest, I've kinda been iffy on the whole putting-that-part-of-a-guy-inside-of-that-part-of-me section myself."_

_ "Again, because you're a virgin!"_ Luna practically repeated, "_You two, gah, you two need to just LOSE it already! Who knows, maybe you can experiment on each other before going in with your lovers so that at least ONE of the two is prepared!"_

_ "HELL NO!"_ both Ino and I yelled hotly to Luna at the same time.

_ "I'm saving myself for someone!" _Ino exclaimed.

_And I'm not a cheater! Never will be!_

_ "Alright, alright, just suggesting." _Luna said defensively.

After that, I practiced moving around in a different body. God, it was so weird not having junk. Kind of nice, to be honest. Not as much 'baggage'. It took a little getting used to, but after a while, I was perfectly comfortable inside of Ino. I was able to make the same movements I could normally use, only as her. She then taught me how to release it, and after a bit more teasing from Luna and Ino, that was that. New jutsu acquired, learned about the birds and the bees, and got practically mind raped.

A successful day, indeed.


	22. Chapter 22: TRAINING! Shadows and Extend

_**Chapter 22 – TRAINING! Shadow Imitation Technique/Partial Multi Size Technique**_

I knocked on the Nara house door. Over time, I'd come to be friends with Shikamaru over time, but nothing real huge or anything. I heard scuffling around the door, and what I assumed to be Shikamaru's dad opened it. "Yes?" he asked to me.

"Hi," I began as politely as possible, "My name is James. I'm one of Shikamaru's friends. May I please talk to him for a few minutes?"

"Sure, one sec." he said somewhat stoically, "Come in if you want."

"Thank you very much." I said as I walked in and closed the door behind me. Shikamaru's dad ran into another room, and in a few minutes, Shikamaru came out, complete with thoroughly bored look. "Hey James. Sup." He said.

"Hiya Shikamaru," I said cheerfully, "I was wondering if we could talk about something."

"I'm not in trouble, am I? it'd be troublesome if I did something wrong and didn't know about it." He put on a clearly fake-worried face.

"Nah, not at all!"

"Well that's cool anyways. Now then, what did you wanna talk about? Having problems with Hinata?"

"W-wha-no! Not at all!"

"What is it then?"

"Well, ahh, I really admire your skill, and I was wondering if you might be able to teach me one of your jutsu. I'm trying to learn one from all of my friends so I can catch up, and I don't really have any jutsu that are passed down in my family, since well…"

"Yeah, I get it." Shikamaru stopped me. "There's only one problem. I'd teach you a technique of mine, but it's pretty closely…uhh…restricted I guess, by our family. It's really pretty troublesome, and I don't see the need for it, but that's how it is, and my old man especially would get pissed at me if I taught any of that to you."

"Oh…alright then. That's okay!" I faked being cheerful about it, but secretly I was pretty put out.

"Sorry about that, man." Shikamaru said, genuinely sympathetic.

I smiled, "It's all good! No bigee!"

"I couldn't help but overhear," Shikamaru's dad, "but Shikamaru, if you want, you can teach him one of the more basic techniques. It won't do that much harm."

"You sure, Dad?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yeah, it's all good. Teach him the Shadow Imitation one; that's the standard," he replied, "Besides, it'll be good practice for when you have kids and teach them."

Getting up, Shikamaru replied, "As if I'm ever having something as completely troublesome as _kids._ Alright James, let's get to a place where you can practice." He opened the door to step outside, only to see Choji's knocking hand linger where there was no door to knock anymore.

"Uhh…-" he got as far as saying before Shikamaru said, "Yes, we can hang out, if you don't mind following James and I to a training place so I can teach him a new jutsu."

"I'm trying to learn a jutsu from every friend possible." I explained, "I feel like I need to catch up to everyone, and I figured this would be a good way to catch up at least a little."

"Well in that case, I can teach ya the Partial Multi Size." Choji said cheerfully.

"You sure you shouldn't ask your old man first?" Shikamaru asked, "It's sort of the same case with my family's techniques."

"Oh, he doesn't care so long as I give them the risks of it and whatever, but it's one of the more minor ones, so it's no bigee," Choji said, "The big deal ones are the more advanced ones, like the rolling technique. But yeah, I can teach him Partial."

I was grinning to both sides of my cheeks at this point. Two in one! Score!

!#$%^&*()

Shikamaru, Choji and I were all in a training area. Shikamaru was explaining how the Shadow Imitation Jutsu works.

"Pretty much, the Shadow Imitation Jutsu manipulates the shadows to take remote control of your opponent. He'll move exactly the way you move as soon as control is taken. Remember a year and a half ago where I used it on you? That's what I'm talking about." Shikamaru stopped for a second for my head to catch up, then once I'd gathered myself, he continued. "Here, this is how you do it." He whipped up a few hand signs, and said, "Shadow Imitation Jutsu." His shadow extended out and connected to my own shadow. Then he raised his hand, and my hand raised outside of my control. "Pretty simple," he said, "And it won't mimic mouth movements, so you're free to speak."

"Seems simple enough." I replied. He released me, and I said, "I imagine you use more chakra in order to make it go farther."

"And according to how long you hold it," Shikamaru added, "It's hard to hold it for extended periods of time, especially for a beginner, and it takes a lot of practice to get its range past a few meters. If you're good enough, though, all you have to do sometimes is jump over the opponent and use it while your shadows are connected."

"I'll definitely keep that in mind. Can I try it?"

"Go ahead. See how far you can extend your own shadow."

"Alright." I made the hand signs, and said "Shadow Imitation Jutsu!" I saw my shadow start to move and shoot itself where I was facing. We were out in the open, so I had as much room to extend as I needed.

That amount of room turning out to be about two meters. This is opposed to Shikamaru's ten meters.

"Ahahah…I can't get it any friggin further!" I said, "On top of that, even at this length, it's really hard to hold!" I released it, my shadow coming back to me. "Damn, that's more difficult than it looks."

Shikamaru cracked a cynical smile. "Is, isn't it?"

"My turn?" Choji asked.

"Yup, go ahead Choji." Shikamaru said, sitting back where Choji was before he got up.

"Alright James, first thing's first! Partial Multi Size makes it so you can extend one of your limbs to a way longer length than it should be for a short amount of time. Rule One: Use this only after you've recently had a nice meal! This technique plays on your calorie amount, so using this a lot will make you hungry, fast. Rule Two: Know your limits! If it turns out you can only stretch it five meters, don't try pushing it to six or seven during a battle, or else serious shit might happen. You could get stuck in that position, which is fixable, but the hospital will be ticked. You could also pull a muscle really hard, and it'll hurt for days afterwards. Rule Three, Last But Not Least…" Choji narrowed his eyes to me suddenly. "Whatever you do, don't ever, EVER, try to use it on _that."_

"…that?" I echoed quizzically.

Shikamaru facepalmed and said, "He means your dick."

"Oh…oh…" I slowly came to realization as to why I'd do that, "OH, NONONONO, NEVER EVER, PROMISE! I'd be too scared to even think of trying that!"

"Good, then we can begin!" Choji exclaimed. "Watch carefully. After making the hand signs, gather your chakra to the part you want to extend, and just shoot the chakra forward. The extendable part will just follow. It's easy!" He made the symbols, aimed his arm in front of him, and said "Partial Multi Size Jutsu!" Seemingly magically, his arm grew longer and longer, to the point where it was an astounding _twentyish meters long!_ The arm then came back, almost like a yo-yo in action, and that was that. "You try now! But do it slowly; it's your first time and you don't know your limits."

"Alright then," I said, making the hand signs, "Partial Multi Expansion Jutsu!" I held my arm out and pushed my chakra through it. It startled me at first as my arm began to stretch. It almost felt like rubber, but the bone and muscle were still there. Further and further it went, until suddenly about four meters long, it stopped. I stretched a bit, but it didn't go any further. "Careful James, don't strain it. If that's your limit, bring it back slowly." Choji instructed. I did as he said, slowly bringing it back, until it was about an centimeter from normal, where it proceeded to snap back into normal place on its own. "Nifty." I said.

"You can only hold it for about thirty seconds before it'll start going back on its own, so don't freak if it comes back like that while you're practicing." Choji said.

"Alright, I think that's all I wanted from you two," I said, "Thanks guys, you've helped me catch up a hell of a lot. I dunno what I could do to pay you back."

Shikamaru leaned back and aloofly said, "Eh, s' what friends are for."

Choji slapped me in the back and said warmly, "I'm sure you'll be a great shinobi at some point. That's when you can repay us by saving our asses out there!"

I smiled, happy to have such good friends.


	23. Chapter 23: TRAINING! Piercing Fang&Bugs

_**Chapter 23 – TRAINING! Piercing Fang/Lightning Bug**_

It was really just another morning. I'd gotten up, done my morning routine, and had gotten ready to go out for a nice morning walk when I heard a knock on the door. _Wonder who that could be…_I opened the door to find Kiba, Akamaru and Shino outside. I smiled cheerfully and said, "Hey guys, what brings you here?"

"Well," Kiba started, "Seeing as though we'd heard you were trying to get a jutsu off of all of your friends, we figured we'd drop by to see if we could teach ya up some things!" Akamaru barked happily at that.

"Holy shit Akamaru's gotten big." I noted.

"Yeah, I can actually ride on him. It's pretty awesome!" Kiba said. Suddenly, the gigantic Akamaru bounded at me, scaring me because I thought he was attacking at first. He knocked me on the ground, stood right above me ominously. Now I was really scared. Was he going to bite my head off! His face came close to mine and…

…he started sniffing me everywhere. Then he started happily licking at me. That's when I realized he wasn't threatening me at all, but was just happy to see me. I started laughing. "You scared me, big guy!" I said to Akamaru. It was clear that he enjoyed seeing me after so long.

After Akamaru gave me the slobberfest of a lifetime, I got back up, grinning partially because I was glad I was alive and that Akamaru still was okay with me. I had a fear of questionable dogs for as long as I could remember, but since it was clear he liked me, I was cool with him now.

Back to the training grounds we went.

When we arrived, Kiba said, "To be honest, it was Shino's idea to come and grab you for some jutsu training."

I turned to Shino, who I didn't know really well, and said, "That was very thoughtful of you, thank you!"

"You're welcome." He said simply.

"Alright, I'll teach you my Piercing Fang technique first," Kiba said, "though I gotta warn ya, for first timers, and ESPECIALLY for non-Inuzuka, you can get pretty damn dizzy. If you're gonna puke, make sure it's not towards us."

"Hah, will do." I replied.

"Alright, this one's more Taijutsu than anything. No hand signs involved or anything; you just have to spiral your chakra around you as fast as you possibly can into a drill shape, then jump and start spinning pretty much. Like this." He demonstrated by running, jumping and using his seemingly devastating technique to drill a nice hole in the ground. I noted that, before he jumped, he pumped chakra on his feet diagonally to get a spin on himself. "Now you try." Kiba said. "Aim it away from us though, just in case!" he added.

"Let's do this!" I ran, gathered chakra to my feet, boosted myself off, spiraling in mid air, and gathered my chakra directionally to try and form a drill. I started spinning faster, faster, _faster, FASTER, _until everything was completely blurred into greenish. I heard faintly a, "You're doing good, now just push forward!" from Kiba. I boosted forward with my Chakra, and I heard very loud crashes all of a sudden. I heard frantic "STOP STOP STOP!" sounds, so I let up abruptly. I found myself spiraling in mid-air, falling, hitting the ground, skipping off of it like a stone thrown into a lake, until finally stopping, sprawled on the ground of wherever the hell I ended up.

I puked right then and there.

After purging myself, I tried to look around, but everything was spinning everywhere still. _Ohhhh…gaaawwwddddd…_Slowly, I came to, realizing that I was in the heart of a forest. I looked around, and realized that I'd made holes through about twenty different trees. It was a wonder how all of them were still standing.

"Jaaaaaaames!" I heard Kiba calling out to me from somewhere.

"Over here!" I yelled as loud as I could.

"Damn, there you are!" he yelled back. I heard them rushing to me, and finally they were all standing above me. "Are you okay?" Kiba said incredulously.

"Yeah…I'll live…what happened?" I asked.

"Well, the way you did it, it wasn't so much of a drill as it was a pointed bullet," Kiba said, "It was way different, but arguably more destructive than our version. You ahh…need a way to control it though."

"No shit, Sherlock." I said, still dazed.

"But seriously, while something like my version would have smashed through them, yours like…_disintegrated_ them. There was less radius to it…but dude…_disintegrated! LIKE SAWDUST!_

"So in other words, more piercing, but needs better aim." I summed up.

"Pretty much. So if you can find a better way to aim it, it'll be devastating. Otherwise, don't use it dude."

"Is it my turn?" Shino asked calmly.

"Dude, give him a few minutes!" Kiba said.

-_a unknown amount of recovery minutes later-_

"To be honest, there is nothing much to learn," Shino started, "Why? Because simply, I'm giving you all of my Lightning Bugs. They will be able to read your mind through your electric signals, and you'll be able to make better use of them because they can feed off of your Lightning chakra." I must have looked slightly startled, because he added, "You don't need to worry. Why? Because they don't need much chakra at all. All one thousand of the ones I'm giving you, in total, only require about 1/100th of your elemental chakra. Why? Because they are bugs, and bugs don't need much to keep going. Also, they only need to feed once every week. So really, you'll only be losing 1/100th of your total elemental chakra every once a week. Other than that, they take care of themselves. They're also immortal so long as they feed off of Lightning chakra. If you somehow run out, you could take them to, say, Kakashi, and have them recharge with him. They have many abilities. Experiment with them as you wish."

My eyes were widened the entire time. He was giving me…bugs. It's not like I have a bugphobia, but I really just didn't know what to think of it. "Uhh…umnm…okay…thank you?"

"I think you're creeping him out, Shino." Kiba stated plainly.


	24. Chapter 24: TRAINING! Weapons w Tenten

_**Chapter 24 – TRAINING! Weapon Training w/ Tenten**_

"Where could she be…?" I wondered to myself. I was trying to find Tenten, or someone else in her team so I could get to her. I knew she was good with weapons, and I'm a weapon nut by nature, so this particular training session I'd been eager for a long time coming. She wasn't at home, so my next stop was Rock Lee's dojo. I had just arrived to it, and walked in. Sure enough, Lee was right there training, doing push ups _on his left pinkie! That's insane! The lengths this guy goes to is crazy!_ "Hey Lee!" I said, greeting him, "Have you seen Tenten anywhere?"

He looked up from the ground and said, "Yes, she is actually right behind my dojo, training by herself."

"Cool, thanks!" I was about to head off when Lee said, "You know, some day you should come and spar with me!"

"Oh trust me, I'm coming over to learn from you next." I said to him. "Laters!"

I rushed over to the back of the dojo where, sure enough, there Tenten was, unloading her weapon scrolls on a poor, unsuspecting dummy. "Hi Tenten, long time no see!" I greeted her.

She unloaded her last scroll of mass Kunai before turning to me and saying, "Oh hey James. Sorry, I was just training some. Care to join me?"

"Actually, I was going to ask something similar," I said, "You see, I'm trying to learn a jutsu or some other thing from all of my friends so I can catch up and not hold everyone behind. I figure variety wins, so I've been going around learning various things from various people, and I was wondering if you could teach me stuff about weapons."

Tenten grinned. "If it's weapons you've come for, you've certainly come to the right place!" She pulled out a different looking scroll and unrolled it. A poof of smoke appeared, and when it cleared, there stood a giant table of almost every single ninja tool and weapon you could think of. "Pick some and we'll get started!"

"Holy hell…that's a lot of weapons…" I said in awe. It had EVERYTHING. Claymores, katanas, kunai, shuriken, smoke/flash/fire/exploding bombs and tags, senbon, nunchaku, knives of all shapes and sizes, staves, spears, polearms, shields, swords ranging from one to ten meters long, and too many more weapons to name here. "I don't even know where to start…"

"Well, as the saying goes, the weapon chooses you. Try a few out, see if they're your style!"

Try a few out? Not only did I do that, I practically tried a good half of them out, which took hours in itself. In the end, it seemed odd that my two favorites turned out to be complete opposites: the long Bo Staff and the twin knives meant for dual wielding. I think Tenten was getting a kick out of how much I admired her arsenal.

A few hours of practice with the Bo Staff, and she said I was a natural. After a while, I got to the point that I could use both, though the knives were more of a backup weapon.

"Those knives are special," Tenten explained, "You can filter your elemental chakra through them. Different types make them do different things. Yours is Lightning, so if you push that through them, it should give them a nice paralyzing ability at least, if not more! They'll also serve as nice conductors. I can lend them to you if you want, same with the Bo."

"Seriously!" I said, "Thanks!"


	25. Chapter 25: An Awakening, A Promise

**Author's Note:** **Nope, this isn't a Training Chapter. You might think it is at first, but trust me, it's plot-pivotal.**

_**Chapter 25 – An Awakening, A Promise**_

I was lounging with Shikamaru on the roof of his house, lazily looking up at the clouds with him. I could see why he liked doing this so much; it was so peaceful. I had been working hard the past few days, and I certainly needed a break. But it had been a while since Naruto and Sakura came back from their mission in Suna. I was beginning to worry.

"Shikamaru," I said, turning my head to him, "Do you think Sakura and Naruto are okay?"

"I would think so," Shikamaru said matter-of-factly, "The thing about Naruto is, he pulls through pretty much everything. I wouldn't worry about him at all." He turned to me and hinted a smile. "He'll come back, you'll see." Shikamaru's face changed all of a sudden. "Oh, that reminds me James, if you want to go learn something from Rock Lee, now's your chance. If Naruto's squad isn't back by tomorrow, Gai-sensei's team will be going as backup."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Sorry I forgot to mention it earlier."

"It's no problem! I'm glad you mentioned it now, I'll head over there right away!" I got up and started heading out.

"Don't overdo it, alright?" Shikamaru said.

I turned back and grinned, "Oh I'll be fine." I took off and headed to Rock Lee's dojo.

~!#$%^&*()_+

I entered Rock Lee's dojo, seeing him inside doing pull-ups with what seemed to be his pinkie toe. I smiled and waved, "Hullo Rock Lee!"

He looked to me and dismounted his pull-up bar, landing in front of me happily. "Hello James! It is nice to meet you again! Were you looking to challenge me at my dojo?"

"Ha, very funny," I said, "There's no way I'd be able to beat you!"

"You shouldn't have such little confidence in yourself!" Lee exclaimed, "You truly are a splendid ninja after all!"

I smiled real wide. It's nice to hear that every once in a while. "Thanks. But actually, I came hear because, well, I want to learn a little from you."

Lee's face was of pure delight. "Are you saying you'll be my first student!" he said, thrilled.

"Ahaha…umm, maybe not _student, _but really I just was looking for a few pointers, and maybe to learn a new technique."

"Well I warn you James, I specialize in Taijutsu only, and-"

"Exactly," I said, "and I'm lacking in the Taijutsu department."

"…well…hmm…I wonder…" he turned to himself for a moment. "do I dare teach him that?"

I just sorta looked at him, waiting.

Lee turned back to me, serious-faced, and said, "You must promise to never use this technique unless you absolutely need to, or for training, and you can't overuse this at all. Got it?"

"Y-yeah, of course!" I said, startled. I'd never seen Lee this serious.

"Okay," Lee said, a little tentatively, "I'm going to teach you how to open your first gate of chakra."

A pause. "My first what now?"

"Your first chakra gate," Lee explained, "Your chakra gates are what regulate your chakra flow. One isn't too hard to open, but anything above that requires intense training, and even one can be dangerous. There are eight in total."

"How many can you open?"

"Five."

"Holy shit."

"Here, all you really have to do is focus your chakra at a certain point in the left part of your head." He dug around for a bit and found a diagram of all the eight gates. "Right here!" he said as he pointed to the first gate, Open Gate.

"Alright, I'll try it." I focused as much chakra as I could in that area…focusing…focusing…

_Why does this feel like I'm taking a really heavy dump?_

_ Focusing…focusing…FOCUSING!_

After a heavy push of chakra in that area, I suddenly felt lighter. My vision was suddenly tinted green, and when I went to move, I moved surprisingly easy. "Whoa…this is hard to control…"

"It takes training and getting used to, but I'm sure you will be able to use it in no time!" Lee reassured me.

_In no time, eh? It feels like my motor functions are twice as sensitive now!_ I jumped a long ways into the air. _If I want to jump 4 feet, I jump 8 feet instead! This feels so weird!_

I landed, and said to Lee, "Okay, how do I deactivate this thing! It's getting too weird!"

"Just focus the chakra up in the gate you want to close like you did before!"

_Focus…focus…focus…FOCUS…_After a couple of minutes, I felt my body become heavier, and my motor functions returned to normal. I was still seeing tinted green though.

"Hey Lee, when's this green-sight gonna wear off?" I asked him. I noticed then that Lee had a weird look on his face, almost panic, but not quite. "Hey man, what's up?" I asked.

"J-j-James! Can you see!"

I blinked in surprise. "Uhh…yeah…just everything's tinted green…why?" I focused on Lee, and it seemed like I…started to…_see through him? Wait a minute, I recognize those lines inside of him…_

"Lee." I said, panicking inside but keeping cool, "I can see your chakra network."

"YOUR PUPILS ARE GONE!" Lee yelled in panic.

"WHAT! GET ME A MIRROR!" Lee dug around and found a hand mirror. I looked at myself in it, only to be shocked at what I saw.

My eyes were…pure light green. Almost as if they were a Hyuga's eyes…except pure light green…

"…what the fuck…?" I said slowly. I turned to Lee, and saw a stream of green stuff coming out of him and entering into me. "Lee, what's that coming out of you?"

"Huh? I don't know what you're talking about, nothing's coming out of me."

"No man, it's like…a green cloud floating out of you and into me…"

"I don't know…but all of a sudden, I feel…fatigued…weak…James…what's…?" He suddenly collapsed.

I stood there in horror. _Oh god…did I kill him! No, please tell me he's not dead! I've got to get to someone fast…I've got to let someone know that I'm dangerous like this!_ I paused for a brief second, thinking on what I should do. _Luna! Where are you!_

_ "Hey James-kun! I see you're coming inside of me of your own will now!"_

_ This is no time for jokes, Luna. This is serious. I…I made Rock Lee collapse by accident, I'm somehow draining his chakra, and I can't control it! What do I do! Shit shit shit shit-_

_ "James! Calm down!" _Luna yelled at me in my mind. I was startled; she'd never yelled like that before, nor sounded that serious. _"I'll get Tsunade-sama to get over there. You need to get as far away from Rock Lee as possible without leaving the dojo."_

_ How did you know I was in his dojo?_

_ "No time! I think I know what it is! Just get to the farthest corner of the dojo and stay there!"_

_ Alright…_I went to the farthest corner from Rock Lee.

_ "Are you seeing green?"_

_ Huh?_

_ "Is everything tinted green in your vision?"_

_ Y-yeah…how did you know?_

_ "I figured that was it…just wait there, Tsunade and I will be there in a few minutes."_

_ Alright…Luna…thanks…_

A small pause. I could almost feel her winking as she said, _"I wouldn't want my love toy to be stressed like this all on his own, now, would I James-kun?"_

_ Ah, there you are Luna. I was wondering when you'd be back._

_ "Oh, shush you. We'll be there in a little. See ya."_

I all of a sudden felt very energetic. I'd been doing nothing but training for the past few days, and I felt no fatigue I felt earlier. The green cloud of what I guessed to be chakra was too far away to make a connection with Lee now, so I guessed he was safe.

After about ten minutes, Tsunade and Luna arrived. "Don't get too close to me!" I exclaimed, "Your chakra might be sapped!" It was small, but I already saw a trickle of chakra from Luna and Tsunade going to me.

"It's a Dojutsu, an eye technique." Tsunade said, seemingly calmly, "Usually you activate or deactivate them by focusing your chakra to your eyes. Try to do that now."

"O-okay." I replied shakily. I tried focusing my chakra into my eyes, though admittedly, the first time it felt really weird. _Focus…focus…focus…FOCUS….._

_ ….FOCUS DAMMIT…._

"Tsunade!" I called in disdain, "It's not working!"

Tsunade sighed, then said, "I figured we might have to resort to this. I'm a medic nin, so you can trust me with what I'm about to do. I'm going to pinch a few nerves to knock you out. It won't hurt at all, I promise, but it should deactivate the Dojutsu."

I was startled at first, but then I understood. I smiled, satisfied. "Thanks for coming here and helping. Alright, I'm rea-"

~!#$%^&*()_+

Pure darkness once again. I was beginning to think that darkness in general had a thing for me. It would certainly explain Luna.

"James-kun?" I heard Aurora's voice asking.

"Hello there, Aurora." I replied.

"I just…feel like I need somebody to talk to…I'm sorry if I'm bothering you…"

"Hey, no bigee. It's not like I'm doing anything anyways. If I'm here, I'm probably in a coma or something, drooling the hours away."

Aurora giggled. "You're funny. Thank you…that's the kind of thing I want most right now."

"I'd imagine, considering your situation…"

A solemn silence.

"So…may I ask, Aurora…how long have you been stuck in Orochimaru's?"

"…I don't know how long…it might be years by now…I don't get to see the outside."

I felt it swelling up inside of me. This urge, this uncontrollable urge to save her, this rage I had against Orochimaru and Kabuto for what they'd done to her, for what they'd deprived her of all these years.

"…Aurora…I'll get you out of there somehow…I…I…" I paused to look at her, even though she wasn't really there and it was just darkness. "I…promise."

"…it's hard for you to promise things, isn't it?" Aurora said.

"…I don't like making promises I can't keep. When I do…I keep them…always. That's my ninja way, same as Naruto."

"You don't have to promise something like that…I wouldn't want you being hurt if you end up not being able to keep it. And if you can't keep it…I'll understand…"

"I'm getting you out of there. I don't know how yet, but I will. I promise." I said, more determinedly.

"…thank you…James-kun…thank you so much…"

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: ****Alright, let's go over what James learned in the Training chapters if you decided to skip them:**

**1****st**** of 3 Tests in Rasengan from Naruto  
Enhanced chakra strength from Sakura  
Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms from Neji  
Enhanced Gentle Fist Defense from Hinata  
Mind-Body Switch from Ino  
Shadow Imitation from Shikamaru  
Partial Expansion Jutsu from Choji (limited range for both shadow imitation and partial expansion)  
Piercing Fang from Kiba (though James still needs to work on how to aim it, or else it's useless)  
Lightning Bugs from Shino  
Lightning Knives and Bo Staff from Tenten  
**


	26. Chapter 26: Return

_**Chapter 26 – Return**_

I awoke in Konoha Hospital. Again. _I have to keep myself out of trouble so much…_ I turned to see Sakura, Naruto and Hinata standing in the room, conversing about something. I smiled and said, "Hey guys, been a while!"

Hinata immediately rushed towards me and practically glomped me. "H-hi there!" I said, blushing fiercely. I thought I heard her crying a little. "Hey…what's wrong?" I asked.

"I…I'm so sorry! I should have been there for you!" Hinata started sobbing. "You must have been so scared!"

I was thoroughly surprised. "Uhh…it's okay, I'm fine, really!" I went and hugged her. "Really, I am. Don't beat yourself up about it." Hinata wiped her eyes, got off of me and sat on the chair right next to me.

"James," Sakura started, "We have to talk about something. Since you're part of Team Seven, this is something you need to know…"

And so they filled me in on the mission in Sunagakure, how two Akatsuki members named Sasori and Deidara had captured and killed Gaara, the new Kazekage, and how an old woman named Chiyo sacrificed herself to bring Gaara back to life. They told me that Deidara escaped, but they managed to get Sasori, who tipped Sakura off about finding the location of Orochimaru.

"So you know where Orochimaru's base is!" I asked incredulously.

"Not exactly," Sakura replied, "We only know where his spy was supposed to meet Sasori. Instead, we're going to meet him there."

"Finally, a lead to Orochimaru!" I exclaimed.

"…you seem excited…" Sakura said, somewhat solemnly.

"Sure am!"

"Why?"

"W-well…" I realized that I should probably keep Aurora anonymous for now. I thought quickly and said, "Well, one of my friends I heard was captured in Orochimaru's base…I wanna go rescue…that person…" I finished.

"Oh, I see," Sakura said, with a flash of suspicion I thought, "In that case, we had better figure out how to control that Midorigan of yours."

"That whatawhata?" I asked.

As if on cue, Tsunade entered the room. "Your Midorigan," she explained, "is allegedly a Dojutsu – an eye technique – that gives the user the power to transfer chakra from a distance, be it to give or take chakra. But I wonder…how the hell did someone like you end up with it?" she asked.

"How am I supposed to know?" I replied, "To be honest, I didn't even realize I had this until now."

"I did some research on it," Sakura started, "It seems that it activates for the first time when a user opens the First Gate of chakra, and from then on is activated at will by the user like any other Dojutsu, by focusing chakra into the eyes. The thing is though…" she paused for a moment before continuing "…supposedly all of the Midorigan users were wiped out years ago. It was native to the Land of Electricity before the massacre there."

I sat there, not really knowing how to react.

"The research says that, in the past, first-time Midorigan users went out of control and sucked all of the chakra in from other people that they could, but afterwards were able to control it naturally. The same goes for having an outside force shut it off for first-time users; as it turns out, many people in the Land of Electricity died because they accidentally activated Midorigan for the first time and couldn't shut it off, so they just sapped chakra from everyone until those people were literally killed from chakra loss."

"So does that mean if I activate it again, I'll be okay?" I asked

"That's what the research says anyways."

"Hmmmm…"

"You can try it if you want," Tsunade said, "So long as I'm here, if anything happens, I can stop you, no problem."

"Alright then…I'll give it a shot." I closed my eyes and focused my chakra up into my eyes. They started to feel weird, and then I was seeing a familiar green tint from my closed eye. I opened my eyes, and everything was tinted green again. "Did it work?" I grabbed the hand mirror beside the table near my hospital bed to look, and sure enough, no pupil or iris, just pure light green. But this time was different, the chakra wasn't streaming out of everyone and coming towards me.

"You guys are feeling okay, right?" I asked, in case for some reason I couldn't see the chakra.

Everyone nodded.

Naruto stepped forward with a grin. "I've got a lot of chakra spare, so try taking some of mine!"

"Alright…I'll give it a go…" I focused on his chakra network coming into mine, and sure enough, I saw that familiar chakra stream coming from Naruto's network and into my own. I started to feel much better already.

"It's working, isn't it?" Naruto said, grinning even more. "Damn that's cool! Hey, I've got an idea." He approached my bed and held out his hand. "Try touching me and see what happens."

I was puzzled. "Uhh…okay…" I put a finger on his hand and focused on transferring chakra, and almost instantly I felt better than I'd ever felt my entire life. "Whoa that's good squishy!" I exclaimed. I looked to Naruto, and realized that he was starting to look tired. "Oh shit, sorry!" I stopped transferring chakra.

"…ahah…wow…that was a lot of chakra…you just took…" Naruto said, struggling.

I turned my head to Sakura. "You said that Midorigan could give chakra too?"

"It should, anyways."

I touched my finger to his hand again, and this time instead of focusing on grabbing his chakra, I forced my own through to him. It worked twice as fast, and I took the connection off after a few seconds, only to feel woozy and tired.

"…whooaaa…sorry Naruto…for taking so much chakra…"I said to him.

"It's all good, I'm fine now! In fact, I think you might have given me a bit of your own chakra…eheh…"

"Whatever…chakra grows back I think…it's like giving blood…well at least I know how it works now."

"In that case, I'm not needed here anymore," Tsunade said, "Naruto, Sakura, James. You three leave tomorrow in search of Orochimaru." She left.

"…no offense to you guys…" I started, still tired as hell, "but I feel a bit sleepy…" Everyone nodded and acknowledged, and left. I flopped to a side and crashed almost instantly.


End file.
